How important do you think a website is for a business? If you have taken time to read this article then you must be planning to launch your business website. Confused about where to start and what to do? No worries, stick till the end, you would get clarity on what to do.
Be it a small business or large, if you want to reach a wider audience then a website is the only go. Agree or not, websites have become the face of a business. It is safe to say that a great website will lead your company towards success. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a startup or a company that has been in the game for a long time, you must have a website that represents your company.
If you’re wondering exactly how important a business website is, then let us answer you. Simply put, you could say it is a bridge that connects both you and your customers and potential customers. It is the go-to place for your customers to understand more about your business and products. You could say that this could become the most important part of your sales funnel. If you have a website that is attractive and interesting, then half of your job is already done. Thanks to digitalisation and technological advancements, creating a website has become quite easy.
If you’re a small business planning to sell goods, having your own website is a must. Many sites allow you to sell your products. You can use those platforms, but having your own website gives you the freedom you’re looking for. You can attract the right audience and lastly improve your brand image.
Here is the list of basic things that you need to launch your business website. Create a list and work accordingly to finally launch your website.
Domain Name
A domain name is the entry point of your website. It is more like what your customers remember you with, a domain name is the representation of your brand. Your domain name should be easy to spell. Avoid using slang, esoteric or made-up words. Your users must remember the name. The shorter the name the better. Make sure that your domain has the .com extension. Use only words, avoid using hyphens, numbers, as domains with them are quite hard to memorise. A domain name is your website’s address.
While choosing your domain name always think of your future too, not just present. Because in future your domain name should not obstruct your future growth. Always choose a domain name that is broader and has a scope for future development. Many sites are selling Domain names, see that you pay the right amount for it. Research it to see if there is already a domain name similar to yours. Using a similar address to someone else will do no good for your business. So see that your website address is exclusive. Your domain name is the face of your website so use a name that defines the purpose of your business. If possible add keywords and geo-location to your domain to make your website address SEO- friendly.
In a nutshell,
- Create an SEO-friendly website address
- Get it at the right price
- Avoid using numbers and hyphens
- Keep it short but memorable
- Use a proper extension
- Make sure your domain name facilitate future growth
Website Builder
Next comes the website builder, for all those people who think website building is hard. Building a website is not as hard as you have imagined it to be. All thanks to the digitalisation, creating a website only takes a few minutes. What, you don’t believe us? There are several website building platforms available in the market, they will help you in creating a website in a few minutes. All you have to do is answer a few questions they ask. Boom!!! Your website is all set for you to use. You can use their amazing themes and make changes to your website as you please. If you’re a beginner then there would be a lot of concerns in your head. You can put them to rest.
Remember most of these platforms don’t need you to possess extraordinary technical skills to create a marvellous website. With zero technical skills also you can create a well functioning, visually pleasing website. Choose a platform that matches your requirements and most of them come with templates and a drag-and-drop editor that makes customising your website easy and simple. You can even create your online store at the best prices. So before choosing a website builder, remember no 2 of them are the same. They all come with different features. Choose the one that serves the purpose of your business.
Web Hosting
If your website is growing then it means that a lot of people are visiting your website. The more your traffic grows the more bandwidth your website requires. This is where web hosting comes into the picture. It provides you with security to save all the important information on your website along with providing you extra bandwidth and other tools that your website needs. While choosing a web hosting provider, don’t forget that you must be looking for important features such as SSL certificate, XML sitemap, etc.
An XML sitemap is a list of all the individual pages of your website. Search engines such as Google use this to index and find all the information on your website. It shows the URL of the page along with the date of when each page is last updated. With it, you can also see how each page is important for the overall structure of your website.
Same goes for SSL, this allows the visitors to form an encrypted and safe connection between their browser and your website. You can be assured of your website security with SSL Certification. Your customers can be assured that all the transactions performed through the website are secure. Not only that the right web hosting provider will see that there is no delay in your website loading. Your web pages will load faster. Simply put, it reduces the downtime of your website and protects all your important data. Many website building platforms are providing web hosting services. So, choose the one that is the right fit for your business.
Content Management System
All these beautiful websites that you see on a day-to-day basis are usually built on an exceptional CMS. Content Management System (CMS) is an application or software program, used to create & manage digital content. The best thing about CMS is that you don’t need to possess the technical knowledge to work on it. Even if you’re a beginner you can easily work your way through it. An excellent CMS will help you in maintaining your website.
There are many CMSs available in the market such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Wix, Squarespace, etc. Choose the one that matches your requirements. Not two websites are similar so is its CMS. Each of them has unique requirements and needs different systems for different reasons, it can be budget, extensibility, user-friendliness. You must see that the CMS you have selected ticks off all your requirements. They offer you different themes that will help you in making your website beautiful.
Live-chat Support
Next up is the Live-chat support. Your website needs to have Live-chat support. Visitors can have doubts they want to clarify. But remember the website doesn’t have the facility of asking personnel similar to a land-based store or office. And importantly a website is present 24×7/365 days, your website will work even on holidays. So it means your customers can reach out to you irrespective of time or day. If your business is having live chat support then rest assured you can always connect with your customers. They always initiate a chat request by clicking on the chat icon and solutions to all their queries.
Did you know? More than 90% of people make the decision of choosing a particular brand based on live chat support feature. And quite frankly customers are currently looking for high-quality customer service over speed. Lastly, stats show that more than 50% of customers use live-chat support to get solutions to their queries.
There are many softwares in the market such as Olark, Hubspot, Zoho. Olark has been in the market for the longest time and provides you with excellent service. It provides you with customer data tools that will help you in gathering all the information from particular customer interaction. Live Chat Support is highly important for your website as it reduces expenses, increases customer interaction, sales and most importantly allows you to discover your customer’s pain points and work diligently to improve yourself.
Chalk Out Your Design
Then comes the most exciting part, designing your website. We suggest you start with a blank paper and chalk out all your ideas on how you want the website design to be. You could say this is the blueprint of your site design and you would have time to understand what you would like to include on the website.
You can clearly and carefully design every web page of your website. Without worrying about how your design is going to look at the end. You can decide the positions of each page and check different positions to see how surfing your website can become an amazing experience for the visitors. Remember, the less complex your website is, the more time people will spend on your website. Confused!!! If people find your website complex then they may not spend more than a few minutes on your website, they may find their way to websites that are easy to navigate.
Simply put, if you don’t simplify your website design, there are high chances of you losing your customers to your competitors. The basic you must include in your website is Homepage, About us, Product/services page, blog page, contact page, FAQ’s page, testimonials page, Privacy policy. These pages will hold all the important information your customers are looking for, so place them strategically so that your visitors can find them easily. And lastly not every visitor will check out all the pages, so make sure that all the important information such contact information is present either at the top or bottom of the page.
SEO
If you want search engines to index and rank your website appropriately then you must optimise your website with SEO. What is the point of having a beautiful website, if no one is visiting it? SEO helps your website reach a wider audience. You must become familiar with the SEO basics to make your website more accessible to the search engine. Avoid implementing black hat SEO techniques because they will not take you anywhere. You don’t have to use such techniques to rank your website well, all you need to do is code your website well.
Use keywords in your website text, give plenty of links along with naming your page titles. Make sure that your page titles and URLs are named correctly. Images and videos have more power than you can imagine. Any information is communicated better if you are using images and videos. People understand the information quickly if it is interpreted in this format. Use this power to enhance the beauty and visibility of your website. But don’t forget to optimise your images too.
Webmaster Tools
Don’t forget to add your website to Google Analytics. As a website owner, you would be curious in knowing how your website is performing along with how visitors are engaging with your content. You can be assured Google Analytics is a free tool, it will help you in learning more about your audience demographics.
Not only that it provides you with information such as how much time people are spending on your website and what pages are they visiting more. All these insights will help you in improving your website. You can also submit your website to Google search console, it will help you in understanding how your website is performing. Not only that, but you can also see which search terms are driving traffic and how many people are clicking on your website.
Quality Content
Have you ever wondered, what is it that makes people stay on your website? There are so many reasons why a person stays on your website for a long time. It can be easy navigation, images or content. There you heard it, beautifully written content can grab the attention of your visitors and keep them arrested on your website. Content is the king, it can attract the attention of the right people. Who wouldn’t love quality content, right? The quality and freshness of the content are quite important for search engines too.
So if you want to attract the attention of the search engine then make sure that you post quality content in your website blogs or any external sites linked to your website. If you want people to keep coming back to your website then make sure that you’re offering extraordinary content to them. Apart from blogs, page content and articles you can also add testimonials. Always add the quality content to your blogs regularly along with connecting in your social media feeds too.
Test It
Last but most important step, test it. You see people won’t search for your website only on browsers, they will search for it on mobile phones too. Mobile phones have taken priority in people’s day-to-day life. It is a miracle if you find a person without a mobile. From personal to professional, all the important work is now done all thanks to mobile.
So if you want your business to succeed then you must make sure that your website is mobile optimised. Before launching your website make sure to give it a thorough check. See that all your items in your checklist are crossed. And once you’re sure that everything is going according to the plan, then you know that your website is all set to be launched.
Conclusion
These are a few basics that you will need to launch your business website. Website is the face of your business, it is the best place to create an impression on your customers. If you’re one of those business owners, in plans to open your website, then hurry and build an amazing website that would reflect your business vision and views. Remember, irrespective of your business size your website brings a lot to the table. So, don’t wait and grab this opportunity to create a website and connect with your audience.
