Key Steps To Building A Great Small Business Website
Whether you are a freelance photographer, own a hardware store, or have another type of small business, a great website is essential for your companys success. As a webmaster who has worked on building or marketing over 100 small business websites, I know what it takes to create great and engaging business websites.
If you are looking to build a new startup website or make your current site more effective, here are 10 key steps to getting started and helping your small business website compete effectively in the online marketplace.
Looking to build a new startup website or make your current site more effective? Learn key steps to… getting started.
Get Web Hosting And Free Domain Registration With Hostinger
A website needs just two things to go live: A domain name and a web host.
You just came up with your domain name. Now its time to put it to use with a good web host.
We highly recommend you use Hostinger for your websites host. They offer a fast and reliable web host. Hostinger also allows you to register your domain free of charge.
You can get Hostinger today for just $1.99/month using our discount link. Itll give you all you need to get your website up and running.
Start by going to Hostingers website. Then click on Start Now.
Itll give you three options for shared hosting, which is the type of hosting most people want to create a new website.
Hostinger offers three options for shared hosting: Single, Premium, and Business:
I recommend signing up for Premium unless you already have a domain name.
My reasoning is that the Single Shared Hosting plan does not come with a free domain, whereas Premium and Business plans do. Since you need a domain name in order to have a website, the vast majority of users looking to create a site are going to want both domain + hosting bundled together.
Both Premium and Business plans come with the ability to create 100 websites, 100 email accounts, and other tools to keep your site at top performance.
The Business plan comes with more storage and bandwidth, so your site will be able to handle more traffic than with a Premium plan.
After selecting the length of your hosting agreement, complete the rest of the information on the page.
Using All In One Seo Plugin
Step 1
You would need to install and activate the All in One SEO plugin to your former domain.
Note: To access the redirect manager add on, you will require at least the Pro version of the AIOSEO plugin. You can also activate AIOSEO on your new WordPress site to further boost your traffic and search engine rankings.
Step 2
After activating the plugin on your old domain, go to the AISEO Redirects page and click the Activate Redirects button.
Step 3
Then, switch to the Full Site Redirect tab, toggle on the Relocate Site switch, and then enter your new domain name beside the Relocate to domain option.
Step 4
Note: You must replace newsite.com with your new domain in the code above.
Step 3
After applying these changes, go to your old domain name. If it automatically redirects you to the new domain, then you have successfully set up 301 redirects.
If not, it implies that you did not set up the redirection properly or your server does not support redirect rules. You may have to contact your web hosting companys support team to turn on RewriteEngine.
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It Resonates With Your Brand Identity
High-quality domain names stand out because they are an excellent medium for expressing the heart of your startups brand identity.
Getting a premium domain name thats an exact match or similar to your companys name and social media handles can help you increase your brands online visibility and make you more accessible to your target audience.
Choosing a domain name that is notably different from your companys name will have a negative impact on the efficacy of your brand.
What Are The Options
Publishing a website is a complex topic because there are many ways to go about it. This article doesn’t attempt to document all the possible methods. Instead, it explains the advantages and disadvantages of three approaches that are practical for beginners. Then it steps through one method that can work right away for many readers.
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Point Name Servers To Hosting Account
Web hosts have name server associated with them. When you want to use a domain on a web host, you need to take the web hosts name servers and give them to your domains registrar. This will route the domain to the web host, thus allowing the web host to host the domain. Without the name servers, the web host will be unable to host the domain, thus making it impossible for the domain and its website to be accessible via the internet.
Youll need to go to your domain registrar to change the name servers. Refer to your domain registrars instructions for changing the name server. If you used Pair Domains to register your domain names, you can look at their Changing Name Servers article for instructions.
It may take some time for the name servers changes to go through, so your site may not be available right away. However, once the changes do go through, your domain and its site will be able to go live.
Puedo Apuntar Dominios A Mis Cloud Servers
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Sí, todos nuestros Cloud Server permiten que apuntes tus dominios hacia ellos.
Si trabajas con un Panel de Control de hosting, como cPanel o Ferozo, puedes utilizar la interfaz del mismo para apuntar el dominio y administrar la Zona DNS. En cambio, si NO utilizas un Panel de Control, nuestro Equipo de Soporte te ayudará con el proceso.
Los DNS para delegar tus dominios puedes encontrarlos aquí.
Recommended Reading: How To Start A Domain Registrar
Speak The Language Of Your Customers
Your potential visitors and customers need to be front and center in your content strategy.
For that reason, you need to speak a language your visitors understand. Remember, they dont have much time and wont be happy if you throw cryptic jargon at them. So try to use a clear and simple language without much fluff.
Set Up Domain Privacy
Although this is optional, setting up your domain privacy is essential because it stops your personal information from being gathered and published in public WHOIS databases.
Spammers, telemarketers, and other bad actors could quickly get this information and use it for illegal activities like identity theft and phishing scams.
Activating your domain privacy will keep your contact information private and save you from needless exposure.
The best way to set up domain privacy is to add privacy protection before completing the purchase. Doing this would even help you place the contact information youd like displayed when someone looks up your domain name.
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What Does Creating A Website Cost
The price for creating a website can vary depending on what option you choose, and how big your project will be. A simple website like an online portfolio thats built with a website builder will cost you less than a bigger website with a lot of different content and extended features.
If you have a personal project, and arent in need of advanced website features or a personalized domain, you can even get free website. Many website builders offer free plans.
For professional projects, youll likely need premium features for example, members areas or online appointment booking and will therefore have to go for one of the higher pricing plans. A website created with a premium plan can cost you between approx. $5 to $45 per month.
If you have a complex project with very individual needs, a CMS or a self-coded solution is your best bet. In case you are tech-savvy and can handle the installation and maintenance yourself, your running costs will be relatively low. All youll be paying for is a domain and hosting provider the prices for hosting plans start at around $3 per month.
Search For Your Domain Name’s Availability
Once you have found the right domain registrar for you, you’ll need to search for your domain name using the registrar’s search bar. There are millions of domain names out there, with thousands more added daily.
If you have your heart set on a domain name before doing a search, you might be disappointed to find it is already taken. Keep an open mind and incorporate important keywords into your domain when appropriate.
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Quick Reference: Create A Visual Site Map
An easy way to understand what you may need for your website is to draw up a visual site map. See our example of a site map .
This example will show you how a visual map can:
- show the layout of every page on your proposed website and how these pages link together
- give a clear overall picture of the website’s scope
- help you decide if it will be easy to create it yourself or if a web developer may be a better option.
But My Site Is Just For Fun I’ll Get A Domain When I’m Serious
“But my site is just for fun,” you say. “I’ll buy a domain when I’m serious about making a proper website.”
When I started my first website, it was just for fun. It was a place for me to post a few of the programs I’d writtenand dump my bookmarks which I had annotated with my own notes. Later, I also wrote short articles about my experienceswith creating websites to help visitors who kept emailing me for help. I never planned for that initial play site tobe anything other than a toy.
The beauty about websites you create for fun, as a hobby, is that they are genuine. They are not fake websites createdso that you can earn a quick buck. You pour your soul into it, and the love you lavish upon it can be seen inyour content. And people notice. And when they notice, they’ll come back for more.
What I’m trying to say is don’t underestimate this first website that you’re creating “for fun”.I never stopped working on that first site. It is still here today. You’re looking at it. It’s nowsplit into two,and known as thefreecountry.com and thesitewizard.com.
Your site may be a hobby site now. But who knows what will come of it in the years ahead?
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How To Create A Website
Learn to make your own website and get it online.
The Website.com Website Builder is the most user-friendly platform to make and publish an entire website online.
This guide will show you how to navigate and use the Website Builder to create your online presence.
Congrats! You’ve created your Website.com account and you’re ready to build your website.
Our website builder is designed so you can create your entire website in the easiest way possible.Note that you can even use the Website.com website builder to make your whole website using a smartphone,but this this guide will show you how to make a website on a desktop computer or laptop .
As the saying goes, “the first step is always the hardest” and it’s no different when building a website. Website.com makes iteasy to take the first step to making your professional online presence.
Once you’ve signed up for a Website.com account, click Edit Site to go to the website builder. Your template is a layout withsections and dummy content. You’re ready to start customizing your website now!
The website builder is where you will be creating and editing your website.
The main area — or the canvas — is the working area of your website. This is where you’ll see your website header, website body, and website footer.Your entire website body layout is made up of sections, and within the sections are the website items.
You can access the page management function by clicking on Website Pages.
Set Up WordPress Website Through Web Hosting
If you used Domain.com for WordPress hosting, you can follow this step-by-step guide to set it up.
If you used Bluehost, you need to first log in and you you should a page like the following:
Now, all you have to do is click the Create your website button.
The next step is to decide the purpose of your site.
You can choose between Blog, Store, Business website, or Portfolio site/Resume. If those dont quite fit your vision, you can select an option in the Other dropdown list.
Next up is to choose how youd like to build your website. Bluehost offers two options: using Bluehosts own website builder, or WordPress.
Since we want to focus on theme-based site building, we have chosen the latter.
Click Get started and your WordPress installation process starts.
Once the installation is completed, you need to log in to your WordPress dashboard.
Right now, whats important for us is to start customizing the new WordPress site and for all you need to do is click on the Customise site button.
On the left sidebar, youll see options that will allow you to modify your websites design, such as:
- Title and tagline
- Background image, and more
Note: the options that appear will vary depending on which theme youve installed.
We recommend playing around with the drag-and-drop editor and experimenting with different fonts and colour schemes to hone your desired aesthetic.
Once youve tweaked your sites design to perfection, its time to move on to pages and content.
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Change/add New Themes And Layouts
To customise your site, navigate to your WordPress dashboard and select Appearance from the left-hand menu.
Here, you can tweak your websites theme, add and change widgets, customise your menus structure, and so on.
Essentially, every change that you want to make on your website can be done through the Appearance tab.
Also, if you feel comfortable with coding, you can even add custom CSS to fully personalise your site.
How Do I Get Custom Domain Emails
Using your custom domain name in your email address can build your brand and create a sense of trustthroughout your customer communications. Website.com Elite plans and above include professional emails at your domain name anda mailbox to store your emails. You can read your emails anywhere, or even set up emails to be accessed on your phone!
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Finding Good Artwork And Images
A website that has only written words on it, looks boring and overwhelming. For that reason youll notice that website templates usually have placeholder images on them. Now, most of the time its not a great idea to just keep them as they arent really customized to YOUR website.
But there are good alternatives too. Most website builders are connected to stock photo providers such as Unsplash or Creative Commons, which are free or Getty Images / Shutterstock, which are paid premium platforms. This is an easy way to add professional looking photos and illustrations to your website.
And even if your website builder or CMS is not directly connected to these stock photo providers, you can just directly browse said websites and get the images from there.
Whats more, you can find more professional-looking photos on a lot of other websites, like Depositphotos and Shutterstock. Here are some more free stock photo options.
Make sure you understand the available image formats: .gif, .jpg and .png are the main formats. Plus, you have to optimize the size and quality of the image to the web standard browser. Everything you need to know about this topic can be found in this beginners guide to web graphics.
Although the human eye will hardly recognize any change in the image, it will speed up your website and improve the user experience for your visitors. Of course, search engines love fast loading websites too!
Por Qu Mi Sitio No Se Ve Como Sitio Seguro
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De acuerdo al uso que hagas de tu Certificado SSL, puede ser que necesites que el navegador utilice siempre la conexión mediante https.
En algunas ocasiones esto no sucede de manera espontánea sino que, forzar al browser para que lo haga, implica que realices ciertos cambios en la programación de tu página web. Dado que, para tu seguridad, desde DonWeb no intervenimos en el código de programación de tu sitio, deberás hacerlo por tu cuenta.
Te invitamos a visitar el siguiente artículo, donde te contamos cómo hacerlo.
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Why Is Websitecom The Best Choice To Make My Website
With Website.com, experience the freedom to create a unique and professional website on your own. The Website.com website builder is theeasiest way to make a website, and you can even create your entire website using your smart phone! You can start with a layout andpersonalize it, or hire our design experts to make your website for you.
When you choose Website.com, you’re choosing the absolute easiest tools to create a professional website: professional layouts, freestock photos, free secure web hosting, and a committed support team. You can even make an online store entirely for free.
With over 1 million websites built with Website.com, you’ll be in good company.
Claim Your Free Domain
Follow the instructions in the welcome email to log in to Hostinger.
Once you log in, youll answer a series of straightforward questions about the website you are trying to create:
And its basically this easy throughout the whole setup, which only takes a few minutes.
Youll have the option to claim your free domain as long as you signed up with Premium or Business Shared Hosting:
At this time you can also connect domains you already own or buy additional domains.
As you select from free domains, keep an eye on the renewal pricing. Your domain is free for the first year. After that, you have to renew, typically at a higher price. This is no different from any other host, but you dont want to be surprised about renewal pricing.
The top example where the renewal price is more than 50 times higher than starting price is unusual. But it happens. The bottom example is much more within the normal range for domain name renewals.
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