Having a strong online presence is absolutely crucial for any company, and the first step towards establishing that presence is knowing how to build a businessl website. This is your first and best chance to make and maintain a good impression with potential customers.
At first glance, it might be tempting to create your own website. After all, there are plenty of free or low-cost options available promising to help you do just that.
But even with so many DIY choices, it is still very much in the best interests of your company to consider hiring a professional for your business website development.
Let’s take a closer look at how to build a business website and why you need the services of a web development pro.
Why Hire a Professional for Business Website Development?
Customized Design and Functionality
While DIY website builders normally offer a few templates to choose from and relatively simple drag-and-drop features, the downside is they often lack the customization and flexibility options that a professional web developer provides.
A professional web designer will create a business website specifically tailored to your company’s unique goals and needs.
This is important because it ensures that your company stands out from the competition.
Mobile Responsiveness
Desktop computers and mobile devices offer completely different user experiences, yet many DIY-ers use a free website builder thinking only about the desktop version.
This is a major misstep.
In terms of total web visits, desktops and mobile devices are virtually identical, each accounting for half of all visits.
However, 25% of all digital media usage is for social media, and those platforms are mainly accessed by people using phones and tablets. In fact, American adults spend an average of 5 1/2 hours on their phones every day.
This is why your business website needs to be mobile-responsive and user-friendly. Not focusing enough effort on your mobile website will definitely cost you potential and actual customers.
A professional web developer ensures that your business website is optimized for all devices, desktop and mobile, thereby providing a positive and hassle-free user experience.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO refers to designing your website so that it ranks higher in search results and makes it easier for potential customers to find your business.
But while every company wants to rank at the top of search results, most people who attempt DIY web design are not familiar SEO strategies and best practices.
Professional web designers have a deep understanding of SEO and know how to build a business website to maximize rankings on Google and other search engines.
Time and Cost-Efficient
While you might think that hiring a professional is the more expensive route, it may actually save you both time and money in the long run.
A professional developer knows how to build a business website efficiently, so you don’t have to waste time and miss opportunities trying to figure it out on your own.
Additionally, DIY projects always have a learning curve, meaning you are likely to make at least a few beginner’s mistakes. Unfortunately, those errors can frustrate visitors, ruin their user experience, and ultimately, cost you customers.
How to Build a Business Website
There’s a lot more that goes into building a high-quality, top-performing business website than the DIY sites want you to know.
Step 1: Define Your Goals and Target Audience
Before you can even start building your business website, it is vitally important to have a very clear understanding of what your business goals are and who your target audience is.
This knowledge helps you determine the overall design, the informative content, and the specific functionality you need.
Step 2: Choose Your Domain Name and Hosting Provider
Your domain name is your website’s online address and your housing provider is where your website will be stored and where it is accessed from.
Pick a domain name that is both easy for customers to remember and that reflects your company’s philosophies, goals, products, and/or services.
When it comes to your hosting provider, factors to consider include bandwidth, storage, and customer service.
Step 3: Select a Content Management System (CMS)
A CMS is a software platform that allows you to create, post, and manage your website’s content even if you do not have any coding skills or knowledge. There are several CMS choices available, but the most popular, customizable, and trusted option is widely considered to be WordPress.
Step 4: Design Your Website
Now your work really begins.
This is where you choose everything about your website, so it is important to understand that EVERYTHING matters – the color scheme, the layout, fonts, images, pages, plug-ins, contact forms, content, ordering procedures, payment portals, and more.
Everything.
Every aspect of your website must be designed with visitors (read: potential customers) in mind.
Your business website must visually appeal to visitors, be easy to navigate, give them the information they are looking for, and hope overall, provide a positive, hassle-free user experience.
But what you may not know is that your website is required by law to be accessible to people with disabilities. Failure to comply can make you subject to exorbitant fines and expensive lawsuits.
One of the biggest problems with building your website alone on a free DIY platform is that they don’t always fully satisfy the provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
This is where a professional web design and hosting company makes a tremendous difference. They already know how to build a business website that aligns with your brand, promotes your products and services, and appeals to your target audience, while at the same time making sure that your site is inclusive and compliant with web accessibility laws.
Step 5: Create Engaging Content
One of the principal philosophies in website design and online marketing is “Content is King.” This means that your website’s content – pages, blogs, articles, newsletters, etc. – is what will attract, inform, and engage your audience, turning visitors into customers and turning customers into lifelong customers.
A few rules of thumb about content creation:
- Post regularly.
- Proactively answer readers’ questions.
- Social media is a great way to stay in the public eye and to attract visitors to your site.
- Blogs and articles also attract visitors, and if they are informative and compelling, they can turn visitors into prospects and prospects into customers.
- Newsletters are powerful tools that make customers feel informed on included. This goes a long way toward earning their repeat business
Step 6: Optimize for SEO
As we mentioned above, SEO is essential for your website’s visibility and ultimate success. Best practices include content, meta-tags, and images that have been optimized for relevant keywords.
Step 7: Test and Launch Your Website
Before launching your website and making it visible to the public, you will want to test it thoroughly to check for any errors or bugs. This is your last chance to fix any problems before it’s published to the world.
Remember when you are testing your website to try to look at it through a visitor’s eyes. Navigate through every page and option, including purchasing, so you can evaluate the entire user experience.
Help from a Pro
If all of this sounds like a lot, it’s because it is.
Just because you know how to operate a successful company doesn’t mean you know how to build a website. Establishing your online presence will requires an entirely new skill set, one that you perhaps don’t have the time, patience, or even desire to obtain.
This is why you should reach out to your trusted website development and maintenance professionals at ClikIT.
As one of the top IT Management companies, ClikIT is your one-stop first and best resource providing web design and hosting for your company’s website. We provide the digital services you need at a price you can afford.
We handle design, hosting maintenance, accessibility, content creation, and much more, taking care of your online needs so you can take care of your business and your customers.For more information about what ClikIT can do for you, CONTACT US TODAY.
