In today’s business landscape, it’s no longer enough to run a business without a web presence. Consumers turn to the internet for almost everything from product and services info to location.

A simple, well-designed website can give you an edge in your field, and if you have something to sell, your website can reach new markets and expand your business easily. 

Whether you’re a coach, course creator, or small business, a website is an essential business tool. 

Below, we’ve listed down 10 essential steps to help guide you in creating a website. 

You don’t need to pour a large budget into your website, but focusing on certain key principles when developing and managing your website will certainly yield a healthy return on investment by attracting new business and driving your business forward.

Here are 10 essential steps to help guide you in creating a website.

Obtain a good domain name:

Your domain name is your identity on the web; you want to make sure you choose a domain name that not only fits your business, but is also easy to find and promote. When choosing a domain name for your website:

  • Make it easy to spell. Try not to use slang, made-up, or easy to misspell words.
  • Avoid numbers and hyphens. They are hard to remember and less elegant and memorable than word-only domain names
  • Keep it as short as possible. The shorter it is, the easier it is to remember and type correctly.
  • Use the proper domain extension like a .com or a location-based extension sunch as .au
  • Ensure it is appropriate to your business. For example, most coaches use their names to build a personal brand. But you probably can’t use your personal name if you’re selling organic products. 

Secure a website hosting with good tech support:

A website hosting provider is a company that offers the technology and services necessary for a website to be “hosted” or viewed on the internet. Most hosting companies now are competitive and offer the same services, but make sure your hosting company has phone and/or chat support so you can be helped quickly if you have a problem. This support often is the differentiation when choosing a great hosting provider.

Differentiate through design:

With literally lots of other websites competing for people’s attention, they will quickly leave a site that doesn’t capture their attention – that’s where great design comes in. 

Thanks to faster broadband speeds and improved software, website design has evolved hugely. Graphics can now be bigger and better, and are a key part of establishing and reinforcing your branding and identity. 

Great design is also another way that you can really differentiate yourself from the competition, so ensure your site looks attractive and professional, as well as being functional. Our websites are built with WordPress as it allows us more flexibility for customisation and functionality. Squarespace is also a good choice if you want a simpler, more beginner-friendly website platform. 

Ultimately, a well-designed website will help to increase visitors, page view rates which will eventually translate to new business.

Be mobile friendly:

The popularity of smartphones and tablets as a way of accessing the internet has risen rapidly so it’s important to bear this in mind when setting up or reviewing a site. 

Having a mobile-friendly site is increasingly important and a site that is easily accessible for mobile users is highly likely to increase sales and raise your profile. 

Display a clear description of your business:

Upon visiting your website, it is important to let your audience know who you are and what your business is about right away. Make sure your homepage banner and other banners are visual representations of your services. 

Additionally, make sure you have an “About Us” page that’s easily accessible from your menus so people can click them and read more about you and your business in depth.

Encourage your customers to take action:

Include and highlight plenty of calls to action throughout your site. Adding a reminder to “phone us” or “email us” or “click here to buy” is simple and amazingly effective. 

Optimise your website for search engines:

Apply search engine optimisation practices to your website to ensure search engines index and rank your website appropriately and then show it to users. Install tools like Rank Math to find relevant keywords that you can rank for.  

Regularly create and publish quality content:

Both content quantity and freshness are important to search engines, so it’s important that you create a plan to publish quality articles and/or blog posts on your site and on external sites that link to your site.

If you want to rank highly in search engine results and encourage people to return to your site again and again, you will have to update your website with new and relevant content as frequently as possible. Our Blogging for Business Course is packed full of ideas to help you create great content. 

Link your website to your social media:

No matter which social platforms you’re using, you can connect your website to these social networks with a link to your website. It is also important that your social platforms are updated regularly so that you can send your followers to view your website content.

You can use a tool like MeetEdgar to simplify social media automation for your social platforms. MeetEdgar automates most of our social post programming, so we simply set it up once and MeetEdgar keeps our social platforms topped up day in and day out. 

Implement a website maintenance plan:

As your business grows, so does your website. It should be continually developed and improved, and regularly updated by changing and adding relevant content. 

This is important because clients, visitors and search engines are attracted by active sites. For example, if Google sees that content is being updated, it will visit a site more often, revising listings which is likely to improve both Google and page rankings. 

Make sure you schedule a website maintenance schedule for your website at least twice a year to review your content and do some cleanup. 

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