In order to stay relevant and in the mainstream it is imperative that every business has a certain level of an online presence. Even if a business is completely being run offline, it is imperative that you have a bit of your presence online for the sake of business expansion.
Nowadays most of the potential customers have been looking towards the internet for a plethora of reasons, including but not limited to product research, to searching the exact location of the shop or the office and even finding out the operation hours of the respective business.
Most of the time even a normal minimalist website would give you the much-required edge and push for your business to perform better.
There is also a scope for expansion of your business in case you have products to sell that can be put up on the internet, thus increasing the chances of you opening new avenues for a customer base and also opening up new markets.
The best part about creating a new website for your business is that it can be built from a scratch even by someone who does not hold extensive knowledge in the field of coding.
The website designing software has been simplified over time thus making it easy for people to create a website by following simple rules.
However in case you need a step-by-step guide to start your website and your business on the internet from scratch we are here to assist you.
1. Determining the Main Purpose of having a Website
A particular Business Website would serve multiple purposes based on the requirement of your business. You can either have a website that provides information about your company or you can set up an eCommerce based platform in order to sell your goods online or you can even have a detailed website that serves both as a platform for selling your goods as well as providing the relevant information about your business.
One thing you should be clear about is your landing homepage which should have the relevant information about what your business does for the convenience of the customers and also increases the overall efficiency of the Website.
If website development is quite simple unless you plan on setting up sort of online payment methods such as apple pay or any other provider.
2. Deciding the Domain Name for your Website
Domain Name is one of the most important aspects of your website since this particular name would be shared by you to potential customers and clients.
The domain name needs to be easy to remember and pronounce and should be sufficiently descriptive and catchy since the domain would be shared on social media and people should find it easy to remember.
In order to prevent any sort of complication, it should be brief, short and should further steer away from complicated words, numbers, and symbols.
You should also decide your TLD or top-level domain which is basically the acronym of the domain such as .com or .org. You can choose the most relevant top-level domain according to your requirements.
However, .com is still the most preferred and go-to TLD for most of the people out there. Once you have confirmed the name of your domain you need to book it and find out if it’s available and then purchase it from places such as GoDaddy, Domain.com, and so on.
3. Choosing a Web-Host
Once you have decided the domain name and bought the rights to the domain, it is now time to decide the web host or essential server on which you shall be hosting your website.
Depending on your budget you can either choose a shared server or your own private server. A shared server will cost significantly lesser however, you shall have to compete with other servers in terms of speed.
A private server will be costlier but it will be considerably faster than the shared server.
4. Building your Pages
A website cannot just be a Homepage. You need to have different elements in order for your website to be the most efficient in nature.
If we take an example of a car then your car is the website and the other parts like the engine, wheels and other parts which make up the car are the different web pages.
You can have different web pages on your site such as About Us, Our Products, An Informative Blog and so much more depending on the type of business you run.
5. Setting Up The Payment Methods
This particular step is mostly applicable for the eCommerce sites which deal with payments since they sell products online.
Considering the fact that a lot of customers deal with debit and credit cards, you need to enable online payments on your website using the assistance of a payment provider such as PayPal, apple pay, or anyone else.
6. Testing and Publishing
Once you are done with setting up your domain with a server, your webpages, and setting up your payment methods if applicable, it is imperative that you check your website carefully and in a detailed manner in order to determine if there are any bugs or not before publishing the website.
You need to check the compatibility of the website on phones and other devices as well. Once everything is done with you can publish your website and make it go live.
7. Publicizing your Website
There is no point in creating a website if people and your potential customers are not aware of it. Once you are done with Publishing your respective website now is the right time to market it.
You can use the assistance of social media and various other tools at your disposal in order to make sure that people are aware of your website and through that people will also be made aware of the activities of your business which will only increase your engagement.
8. Build an Email List
An email list is a list of emails that businesses have gathered from their website visitors. If someone is interested in your website and want to receive discounts, information, and updates about your business they are more likely to subscribe to your email list.
Email lists are an important pillar of digital marketing as email marketing is the best way to connect with customers intimately. In fact, it’s better than social media. Email marketing has higher click-through rates when compared to social media.
