Today, eCommerce is responsible for generating over 10% of all sales. While that number might not sound like a lot, it continues to creep upwards every day.
Given the migration of consumer spending from local to online, more and more business owners are taking their website creation efforts seriously. After all, if your website is going to account for at least 10% of your sales, you’re going to want to make sure that it functions well enough for customers to be able to engage with.
If you’re a website novice and don’t know the first thing about online building, the prospect of creating a site that can generate income for your business can be a daunting one. To help make things easier, below, our team walks you through practical tips, steps and advice on how to make a business website.
1. Know Your Website’s Purpose
Before you take any action on your how to make a business website ambitions, you’re going to want to give careful consideration to planning. If you don’t have a good plan to guide your web design efforts, you will almost certainly end up with a worst product that if you had a blueprint to follow.
At the core of every good plan is a purpose. So then, ask yourself, what is your website’s reason for existing?
Once you understand what you want your website to do, you should make sure that every design choice that you make helps you towards that goal.
2. Pick a Self-Service Platform
It used to be that when you wanted to make a business website, you’d need to hire a pro. Today, that’s not the case.
There are many website building platforms out there that allow non-coders to build fabulous sites. WordPress, SquareSpace, Joomla! and WIX are a few popular options.
We recommend building your business website on a platform that’s easy enough where you can hop in and manage your product without hired help. This is preferable to having your website coded by hand since hand-coded sites will require you to contract and pay an agency every time that you need a tweak made.
3. Hook Up With a Solid Web Host
When your business website isn’t working well, your customers are going to be skeptical of how well your products work. A huge component of how well your website is working is the web host that you’re doing business with.
Your web host is the company that houses your website on the internet. When you’re working with a web host that has fast, reliable servers, your site is going to load quickly and be responsive to user input. If you’re working with a fly-by-night web host that has horrendous servers, your website will suffer.
Checking a web host’s reviews before signing a contract with them is a great way to make sure that your website will be safe.
4. Less is Always More
Head over to the Breakout Games website. What’s the first thing that you notice? Chances are, you see the “Play Now” button at the top and center of their homepage.
Beyond that, not too much else catches your eye.
That’s exactly how you want your website to be structured. Don’t make things busy and always ensure that your user’s eye is being pulled towards whatever it is that you want them to engage with.
5. Display Your Contact Information
There are a lot of scammers out there today. Something that almost none of them have up on their websites is contact information and a business address.
To stand out from the shady characters that do business online, make your address/contact information visible to your website visitors and have a professional business answering machine ready to greet callers.
6. Lean on Imagery
A picture is worth a thousand words. That’s why so many companies lean heavily on imagery when they make a business website.
In a perfect world, you could have your own professional photography contracted for your site. If that’s not a possibility for you, using stock images could be a good alternative.
That being said, in today’s crowded online arena, it’s pretty easy to spot a stock image. That’s because hundreds of other websites will likely be using the same images on their site that you’re using for yours.
If a consumer sees a prominent photo on your site that they know they’ve seen elsewhere, they may think that you stole it.
7. Tell Your Story
We hope that you’re aware of the fact that a lot of businesses do what you do. No matter if you’re a retailer, a barber or anything else, a stone’s throw away from your business, somebody is fighting for your exact same customer.
What sets you apart from your competition is the quality of your products and your story.
We’re going to guess that the quality of your product is a given. So, next, use your website to tell your story and create separation between you and the others in your space.
Your story shares just a little bit about you. It then shares a lot about your brand and what makes it the best one that consumers can choose in the marketplace.
A strong story is capable of driving strong business. Don’t neglect to invest in coming up with a good one.
Wrapping Up Our How to Make a Business Website Tips
When you make a business website, you make a means where costumers can engage with your company 24/7. That’s a powerful and increasingly essential thing as the makeup of today’s consumer changes.
Our tips above will get your website building efforts off on the right foot.
If you need more information on website building or a variety of related topics, feel free to browse more of the how-to content that’s on our blog. You can also use our digital tools to start building elegant digital products now!
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