A great website is necessary for the success of any small business, whether you own a hardware store, you’re a freelance photographer, or have another sort of entrepreneurial endeavor.

Why? Because the internet is a 24/7 marketplace that caters to virtually anybody in any geographical location in the world.

Whether you’re starting up a business or enhancing an existing one, these are the 10 essential steps for getting started and assisting your small business website in competing successfully in the market:

1. Obtaining a good domain name for your website 

It is crucial for your domain name, often known as your website address, to be appealing from a usability and SEO standpoint.

Here are some pointers for choosing a great domain name:

• Make it simple to spell. Avoid using jargon, made-up words, or obscure usages.
• Keep it as brief as possible. The shorter it is, the more easily people will remember and type it correctly.
• The correct domain extension must be used. Unless it’s more appropriate to utilize another extension, such as .gov, .edu, or.org, try to use a.com domain (as opposed to.net, .co, etc.)
• Avoid numbers and hyphens. They are difficult to recall, and word-only domain names are more elegant and memorable than numerals and hyphens. When saying the domain name aloud, they may be misinterpreted.
• Make the address as generic as possible to allow for future expansion. For example, Amazon.com is a more comprehensive website address than BooksOnline.com, allowing Amazon to sell a wide range of consumer goods rather than only books.
• Make sure it is memorable. With so many business websites on the internet, your website name must be distinctive so that people will remember how to get to it in the future.
• Research if you own the domain name. Google it to check if a similar website exists to ensure that it doesn’t infringe on any trademarks.
• Check to see whether the price is fair. Determine whether you can acquire your desired website address at a reasonable cost, as most excellent domain names are already claimed and will need to be purchased from the current owner.
• Don’t pick a name to satisfy yourself. Choose a name that has a meaning so that customers can immediately tell what your company does. Yahoo and Google are famous names, but they were costly to brand, and your company may not have the same resources.
• Create an SEO-friendly URL. Aim to develop an SEO-friendly website address that incorporates keywords and geo-location.

2. Secure and scalable website hosting with effective technical support

A website host (also known as a website hosting provider) is a firm that provides the technology and services required for a website to be displayed on the internet. You connect your domain name to the hosting company that hosts your website so that when people go to your website address, they are directed to the site you’ve stored on your hosting account.

It’s important to remember that not all web hosting services are created equal. Some of them cost less, but others can be more expensive depending on the type of technology and support you select.

Here are some points for picking the best website hosting plan:

• “Shared hosting” plan means that you are sharing a server and its resources with other people, which can have a negative impact on the performance of your site. It’s also possible for your website to be hacked if one of the other websites on the same server is compromised.
• The most costly alternative is a “dedicated server” hosting plan, which will make your website operate at its peak performance. The physical server machine is exclusively devoted to your site, so all of the resources are yours. It is comparatively more secure than a shared hosting arrangement if the technology is appropriate. However, it is somewhat more expensive than most small businesses are willing to pay. After you’ve built a high-performing website, this may be the solution for you, but it’s too much equipment for most early-stage and small firms.
• A “virtual private server” (VPS) hosting plan, which combines the flexibility and performance of a shared hosting environment with the security and scalability of a dedicated server, is usually suggested as the optimal balance. A virtual private server (VPS) is a single machine that is partitioned to operate as many machines, which results in it having similar affordability as shared hosting while offering comparable performance and security potential as a dedicated server hosting plan.
• Ensure your website’s hosting company offers phone and/or chat assistance so you can receive help as soon as possible if something goes wrong. When communicating by email, it’s typical for customer support to take too long and become stressful when a difficulty must be fixed straight away. Phone support is ideal, but chatting works well, too.
• In order to access your server, you’ll need a user-friendly server interface such as cPanel. You don’t want to use terminal commands to inspect and modify your server data unless you’ve got money to hire a professional server administrator.
• Examine the server’s security you’re thinking about to see what type of protection it offers. You’ll need to be able to access your server using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). There should be daily backups of your server data. There should also be an easy, one- or two-click method to install SSL certificates. Verify that the hosting company performs routine security maintenance. Ideally, your hosting provider has a published security procedure in which you may participate so you can ensure their servers are safe.

3. Prominently display a clear description of your company

It’s critical to inform visitors who you are and what you do as soon as possible so they don’t get confused when they visit your small business website. Keep in mind that your company’s main homepage banner (also known as a “hero image”) and subsequent banners should be visible representations of your services, as well as an introductory text blurb near the top of the website that explains who you are and what you do.

Additionally, make sure your primary and footer navigation menus include “About Us” page links readily available so that customers may visit them and learn more about your company in-depth.

4. Implement an effective content management system

A content management system (CMS) is a software application or program that is used to generate and manage digital content. A good CMS will allow you to keep your site up and running without requiring much technical knowledge. Choose a CMS that is built specifically for your requirements; different systems are employed for various purposes, such as ease of use, extensibility, and cost.

The following are some well-known systems, with their benefits and limitations listed.

WordPress: WordPress is one of the most popular CMS in the world. It has a large, active support community as well as several helpful extensions to enhance the functionality of your site. (If you can’t find a plugin that fulfills your needs, it’s simple to locate a WordPress specialist who may design one for you). WordPress is also free and comparatively easy to install. It’s not challenging to locate someone or an agency who can help with your website because most internet development firms are familiar with it. Small businesses should utilize WordPress to create their websites, as it is very flexible and extensible.

Your WordPress site must be maintained and secured on a regular basis to avoid being hacked. Ensuring every third-party plugin is difficult, so maintaining the security of your WordPress site must be a constant commitment through various best practices (checking to see if your plugins have been updated in the previous several months, making sure it’s a plugin developed by WordPress itself, uninstalling unused plugins as soon as possible).

Drupal: Another popular CMS is Drupal. It has similar advantages to WordPress, including flexibility, simplicity of use, and a large user base. Notably, it’s a more secure CMS than WordPress ( safer from malicious attacks ), but it lacks many plugin and theme options, which makes it less flexible.

Joomla!: Another popular CMS is Joomla! It has greater SEO, security, and multilingual capabilities out of the box than WordPress does; however, with the aid of a few extensions, WordPress outperforms them in every way.

Squarespace: Squarespace is a subscription-based platform that makes it simple to create a website or blog with just a few clicks. It provides website creation, development, software maintenance, metrics, domain name purchase and renewal, SSL protection, 24/7 support, and unlimited storage and bandwidth hosting in one package. It’s fantastic for creatives and contains some of the best design templates available. So if you’re on a tight budget and need a simple, beautiful website but don’t want to spend the money on a web designer, this is the service for you.

Squarespace has a smaller learning curve than WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla!, but it lacks the same degree of extensibility. As a result, Squarespace is a wonderful choice for individuals who have little or no technical expertise and need an easy method to create a website.

Wix: Wix is comparable to Squarespace, but it’s a little more user-friendly. It has similar features and is available on a monthly, rather than annual, subscription. Wix offers drag-and-drop capabilities, but it’s not as structured as Squarespace in terms of where you may drag and drop on the page. Nevertheless, Wix is one of the most simple platforms to use, and it has an even smaller learning curve than Squarespace.

Wix has a larger variety of templates than Squarespace, but you must stick with the template you select or be forced to completely rebuild your site. You may modify your template at any time using Squarespace without having to rebuild the site.

5. Choose a good e-commerce platform

If you want to sell items or services on your website, you’ll need the proper tools. If you’re not already selling anything, e-commerce might be a good way to boost your earnings. Whether you choose to allow customers to exchange money with you on the internet, you’ll need to pick the appropriate platform for your company model.

Here are some of the most popular small company e-commerce platforms:

WooCommerce: WooCommerce is a popular e-commerce platform that can turn your WordPress website into an online store. There are a lot of plugins for WordPress, and it is compatible with WooCommerce, making it extremely adaptable. There are numerous free and premium WooCommerce theme options available. (Premium themes from reputable developers are generally preferable because they provide greater security and support). If you are not tech-savvy, you will most likely require the help of a WordPress developer to set it up and utilize it. WooCommerce also offers a wide range of features and scalability, which your small business may find useful.

Shopify: Shopify is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that allows you to build and edit an online store, as well as handle products, inventory, payments, and delivery. It isn’t a WordPress plugin, like WooCommerce, but rather a Shopify-based platform accessible from anywhere without an app or browser. Unless your primary website has a Shopify integration plugin, you can link to your Shopify account from any regular WordPress, Drupal, Wix, or similar websites.

Features include unlimited bandwidth, unlimited products, fraud analysis, discount codes, reports, and much more. The best features of Shopify are that you won’t need a web developer to set up a store, and everything else on the backend is already set up when you join. The plus side is that you have less control and flexibility over your store than you do with WooCommerce.

Shopify Plus: Shopify Plus consists of more customization, additional employee accounts, and international e-commerce possibilities. It also has more assistance. However, all of this comes at a higher price with a subscription, and it still lacks some of WooCommerce’s flexibility and customization options.

Business Squarespace: Squarespace offers a monthly e-commerce subscription plan, which is a great option for people who don’t want to deal with the complexity of maintaining an online store. Squarespace does charge a transaction fee, but you may upgrade your membership to a basic online store to avoid it. In addition, it has a free domain, SSL security, SEO, abandoned cart recovery, specials, real-time carrier shipping, and more.

Wix: Wix offers a Shopify plugin that is quite simple to use. To utilize it, you’ll need to upgrade your Wix account and subscribe to Shopify.

GoDaddy Online Store: The e-commerce standalone subscription platform from GoDaddy is a relatively new product that is simple to set up and use. With GoDaddy Online Store, you don’t need a lot of technical expertise to get started. The templates are simple to use, although they may be somewhat modified. These features include marketing and search engine optimization tools, social media integration, appointment scheduling, SSL security, fast page loading, and more.

6. Create an interesting, engaging website and memorable user interface

Make certain that your small business website’s interface leaves a good first impression, resulting in results. You may do so by following these recommendations:

• Use beautiful easy-to-read fonts and graphics.
• Make sure you’re using graphics that are compressed and optimized for speed. If your website is sluggish, search engines like Google may penalize it.
• Invest time learning about your competitors’ websites and how they have constructed them. Take similar components from their larger websites and apply them to your own small business website.
• Research to help figure out what your visitors want from your site and make it simple for them to accomplish.
• Stay consistently on-brand throughout your website design.
• Create a user-friendly navigation system that allows visitors to quickly access the sites they need.
• Publish easily accessible contact information.
• It’s essential to include prominent call-to-action (particularly “buy now” buttons) in your marketing.
• Create web pages that are standard for small business websites, such as:
• About Us
• Home
• Products/Services (with visually appealing images and descriptions)
• Management team
• Sitemap (for SEO purposes)
• Contact us
• The terms of use (the online contract that governs how visitors may utilize your site)
• Privacy policy
• Additional pages relevant to your small business

7. Optimize your business website for search engines

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of actions you take on your website to ensure search engines index and rank it properly, then display it to searchers. After search engines are ” crawled,” your website competes against websites with comparable material. The higher your site appears on search engine result pages, the better your website’s design and content are.

Here is a list of the most common SEO activities:

• Fast loading speed
• Keyword research and implementation
• Optimal website code
• Having a mobile-friendly site
• Having an SSL certificate on your website is vital for security because it protects sensitive information from being intercepted. SSL is the industry standard for online security and provides data privacy between web servers and browsers
• Having lots of positive reviews online (Facebook, Google, Yelp, etc.)
• Existence of high-quality backlinks (links on external websites with related content) that lead to your site
• To keep people clicking and reading, use internal connections throughout your site.
• Use social media to link to your site (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.)

The search engine optimization (SEO) procedure is an essential ongoing process that may distinguish between finding your website on the top of search engine results pages (resulting in a large number of free visitors) or page 300 (no traffic).

8. Regularly create and publish quality content

Search engines prioritize the amount and freshness of your content, so make a strategy to publish high-quality articles and/or blogs on your site as well as on external sites that link to it. You need to maintain your website up to date with fresh and relevant information as frequently as possible if you want to rank highly in search engine results and entice visitors back frequently.

A fantastic type of material to put on your website is testimonials, in addition to static page content and articles. Requesting personal testimonies from clients and then posting them on your website is a fantastic method to add fresh, high-quality material that will make your small business more appealing.

Make sure your material is written in an acceptable, on-brand tone that people will want to read.

9. Install webmaster tools

• Install Google Analytics and Google Search Console (both preferably via Google Tag Manager), as well as Bing Webmaster Tools, to make use of important data to analyze traffic and site performance. The following types of data may be tracked using these tools:
• The number of times each page of your site has been viewed
• Daily, weekly, and monthly visitors to your website
• “Bounce rate”—the percentage of people who visit your site and depart after viewing only one page (Google prefers sites with a low bounce rate, believing that consumers spend more time on the site and find it useful.)
• Average time spent on the website by visitors
• On your site, there may be incorrect crawl data (data that search engines found on your site during crawling)
• Broken links on the website
• Keywords that bring people to your site
• Web page download time
• Backlinks to your site that can help you enhance your SEO

10. Implement a website maintenance plan

A website shouldn’t be allowed to become obsolete once it’s up and running. To have a successful website that ranks high in search engines and isn’t hacked, you must ensure that it is properly maintained.

Here are some ideas for establishing an excellent web maintenance strategy for your small business:

• Make use of Google Search Console to check webmaster tools data at least once a month and have critical problems notified to you in real-time.
• Use traffic data to investigate your audience so that you may better satisfy them.
• Use performance data to optimize and fix errors and warnings.
• Make sure all the software is always up to date.
• Scan your website for malware and confirm that it hasn’t been hacked.
• You may use “split testing” to determine whether certain variants of your website improve performance; for instance, if you’re selling a product, you may have two versions of the same landing page with different pictures and wording – split testing allows you to see which one converts better.
• Find trending and effective ways to market your business online.
• Allow website visitors to provide you with feedback about your site.
• Continue monitoring your competitors and seeing what they’re doing with their online presence to see if what they’ve done might work for you.

Creating a successful small business website isn’t as simple as you may believe. Even so, if you follow the steps outlined in this article, your small business will have a good chance of succeeding online.

The objective: Produce an appealing and easy-to-use website that boosts your brand and effectively delivers content.

Essentials necessary: Web hosting, a domain name, website design, web development services, and updated content.

What can go wrong? The site could be hacked, or people won’t visit it because they can’t find it on search engines. To avoid this situation, avail SEO services to help in learning what areas of the website are working well with users and what areas aren’t so they may be improved upon.