This article will focus on how to create a website for a small business, including a step-by-step guide.
- Plan the purpose of your website
- Choose your custom domain name
- Register your domain
- Select your hosting provider
- Select a theme or template
- Install plugins or extensions
- Plan your sitemap and navigation
- Add engaging written content
- Add visual content
- Optimise for SEO
- Integrate your social accounts
- Testing and final review
- Publish your website
- Maintain your website
1. Plan the purpose of your website
The first step in creating a website for your small business is planning the purpose of your site. Will your site sell products, promote services, inform, educate or entertain?
Your website can be a simple space that shares your brand and contact details, or it can be a full e-commerce platform where you can sell directly to consumers.
Once you’ve decided on the functionality of your website, it’s time to think about user experience – the journey that takes a visitor through your website and sales funnel.
2. Choose your custom domain name
This is the URL that you’ll share with customers and promote through digital marketing, so it’s important to get it right.
Best practices for choosing a domain name:
- Keep it short
- Limit abbreviations, numbers, hyphens and acronyms
- Make it easy to remember
- Don’t make it too specific to a product or service – this can limit its value for SEO, and could be an issue if you business changes direction
- Keep it relevant to your brand
3. Register your domain
Once you have an idea of what you’d like your custom domain name to be, you need to register it. The best domain name registrars for the UK include GoDaddy, A2, Namesilo, and Namecheap. All you need to do is type in what you want, and they’ll tell you what’s available and how much the fee will be.
4. Select your hosting provider
Popular hosting providers include:
- WordPress
- Wix
- Squarespace
- Shopify
Your website is only effective when it’s up and running, so your web hosting service must be very reliable and secure as well as affordable. It can be worth it to pay a little more to a service provider that guarantees their service, can scale up and down as your business grows and changes, and offers great tech support to reduce security risks and help keep your business running smoothly.
You will have two main options when it comes to web hosting:
- Shared web host – The shared option is more affordable because multiple websites will be hosted on the same server, but this does mean that your website may load more slowly.
- Dedicated hosting – A dedicated hosting option will mean your site gets exclusive use of a hosting server, which is more expensive but should guarantee the fastest load times.
Consider page load times
Page load times may not seem like a big issue, but it’s one of the most important aspects of a high-quality website. Google has indicated that page speed is one of the signals its algorithm monitors and uses to rank a website in search results, so it’s critical for search engine optimisation (SEO). This is because load speeds have a significant impact on user experience, with slower pages having much higher bounce rates (the percentage of visitors leaving your website without taking any actions) and low conversion rates, especially on mobile conversions.
You can test the load speed of your website using Google’s PageSpeedInsights and measure it against load speed benchmarks, keeping in mind that the highest e-commerce conversion rates happen on pages with load times of 0-2 seconds.
Top website builders for small business
Small business website builders include:
- Shopify – For selling products online
- Squarespace – For extensive designs
- GoDaddy – For guidance
- Wix – For promotion
Install WordPress software
You may also choose to install WordPress – a useful tool to help you add content to your site.
5. Select a theme or template
Next, select a theme or template you’d like your site to use. Consider aspects like:
- Responsiveness – Ensure the theme allows your site to adapt to different screen sizes.
- Speed – Check the amount of plugins the theme has which could cause it to run slowly, and watch out for slow loading times when you try to design pages.
- Accessibility – Check the theme includes accessible elements, such as the ability to add alt text to images.
- Flexibility – Choose a theme that offers room for unique customisations so you can add your own stamp to your site.
6. Install plugins or extensions
Plugins (WordPress), extensions (Squarespace), and apps (Wix) add new functionalities to your website.
Be careful how many plugins and extensions you add to your site, as this could slow down performance. Check that any plugins you install are secure.
Add plugins that help with the following areas:
- Site performance
- Site optimisations
- SEO
- Security
- Backups
- Ecommerce (if relevant)
You can find out more in our guide to the best WordPress plugins.
7. Plan your sitemap and navigation
Next plan your sitemap and navigation. Ensure to keep your navigation logical and easy-to-use so your website visitors can find everything they need to! Think about user-flow throughout your site, and the desired actions you’d like visitors to take, such as filling out forms or purchasing products.
8. Add engaging written content
Written content
Next up is adding useful written content to your website. These are the types of pages you’d usually have on a small business website:
- Homepage
- About Us Page
- Booking Page
- Contact Us
- Content
- FAQs
- Testimonials/Reviews
However, depending on your product, services or business level you may like to keep your site more simple than this.
9. Add visual content
Add high-quality visual content to your website. Use images to break up text, however ensure any images you add have been compressed and are in an SEO-friendly format such as Webp. Add alt text to any images to make them accessible to all website visitors.
10. Optimise for SEO
SEO is a powerful, long-term strategy to drive organic traffic by making your website more visible to people searching for businesses like yours.
This should involve the following steps:
Keyword research:
Use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner, and Ubersuggest to find relevant search terms. Apply them across your website to improve search rankings.
Publish fresh content:
Regularly update your site with new, engaging content, such as blog posts, that reflect your brand and address customer needs.
Image optimisation:
Ensure images are compressed, and high-quality to enhance rankings without slowing your site. Add image alt text containing relevant keywords.
Linkbuilding:
Link relevant internal pages for easier navigation, and add authoritative external links (non-competitors) where appropriate.
You can find out more about the elements of SEO in our SEO guides.
11. Integrate Your Social Accounts
Social media integration gives your customers and clients more ways to interact and engage with your brand, bringing them to your website off your social media profiles. Social media is an affordable and effective way for small businesses to compete with larger corporations, increasing brand awareness and reach through sponsored advertising, social media posts, competitions and much more. With full social media integration, your brand is immediately able to reach millions of potential customers who are using these platforms for researching products and services, looking for recommendations, and verifying what brands they can trust to deliver.
12. Testing and final review
The next step is to make sure that every aspect of your website is functional, from navigation bars and links to setting up payment processing and contact forms. There should be extensive testing well before your small business website goes live, making sure any changes can be made well before the first customer arrives. During this stage, focus on:
Browsers
Your website should work on all major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Google Chrome. Each page should be tested to check for loading errors, broken links, and formatting.
Mobile
Test the mobile experience on a range of tablets and smartphones to make sure it is in line with Google’s mobile-first indexing, as this will impact your SEO. Essentially, this means that search engines are testing your mobile website experience as a priority for listing your web pages in search results, so it’s very important.
Analytics
Having your analytics in place will allow you to measure and analyse the performance of your website when it is live. This lets you see what pages are performing well, what pages need improvements, and much more. Google analytics offers very advanced features for small business websites, and you can use their reports on how your visitors are reaching you, who they are, and where they are from to refine your website and marketing campaigns.
13. Publish your website
Following testing and final review, now it’s time to publish your website! Keep an eye on your website analytics to measure performance and diagnose any issues.
14. Maintaining your website
Regular maintenance and updates to your website are important to ensure your website runs correctly and is optimised for search engines. Changes in search algorithms may need to be incorporated into your content, changes in browser functionality may mean you need to update the website’s backend or add new features, and changes in your business should be reflected in your online presence.
As a matter of priority, it’s important that you:
- Update contact details, address, and business name
- Ensure you are applying security best practices, including software and app updates
- Check and repair broken links
- Address customer complaints
- Update products and services
- Ensure legal and industry compliance standards are met
- Update your website when it is no longer aligned with consumer trends or your brand (after several years or a major change in your business)
Check out our guide to maintaining your WordPress website for more information.
Small Business Website Best Practices
Here are some small website best practices to follow when creating your website:
- Select easy-to-read fonts
- Choose a logical site navigation
- Choose a colour scheme
- Use high-quality photos
- Optimise for mobile
- Add a CTA
- Use white space
- Avoid clutter
- Add testimonials
- Think about visual hierarchy
- Run A/B tests
- Accessible design
Setting up a small business website FAQs
Does my business need a website?
Most businesses will benefit from creating a website. This helps to build trust in your brand, and let more people know about your products and services.
How much does a small business website cost to make?
The cost of your website depends on your specific requirements. We’d advise contacting an agency to discuss your requirements – you may be surprised to find out using a web design agency to build your website can be more affordable than you think!
How much does a small business website cost to maintain?
Again, this depends on how large or small your website is and your website’s purpose. Some small sites require maintenance every 6 months, however some larger websites require maintenance every 3 months or even more regularly if you have a lot of visitors and sell alot of products. Contact us to find out more about website maintenance options.
Should I build a website myself or pay someone to help?
In just 50 milliseconds, a visitor will decide whether they’re staying or leaving your small business website – and that’s where a custom web design makes all the difference.
A custom website offers a greater range of functionality and creativity.
There are plenty of business website builders and drag-and-drop builders out there to build a website from scratch that can seem like a good alternative to using a professional design agency. However, this is a lot like remodelling your home yourself rather than calling in an expert team of architects and contractors. DIY simply doesn’t have the clean, polished look and wow-factor that a skilled professional can provide. After all, you’re the best at your business and your skill and professionalism directly benefit your clients – a design agency is the same.Cost is often cited as a factor when making this choice, but it’s important to think more in terms of value and ROI than an upfront expense. In fact, most digital agencies offer surprisingly affordable pricing plans and a wide range of templates specifically to assist small businesses.
Can I permanently buy a domain name?
Currently a domain name cannot be bought permanently, so you need to make sure you renew your ownership of the domain. Automate the renewal process if possible with your domain provider to make sure you don’t lose the domain name!
Should a small business website have a blog?
Yes, a blog can be a great tool to help your small business gain more website traffic. A blog can be used to create useful content, which can target relevant keywords and help your business rank in search engines to build your online presence.
For more information on what makes a good website, check out our guide on web design principles.
Yellowball is a multi-award-winning web design agency in London specialising in website redesign, content marketing and digital marketing strategies. We work with businesses large and small, creating bespoke websites that shine online. Let our team show you what your online presence can do. Contact us today.
