Over the last few years, it has become critical for small businesses to invest in a strong online presence. Gone are the days when a single storefront or social media page could enable your business to compete in a world of digital shopping and international shipping. The process of creating your first small business website won’t be difficult, but you’ll need to keep a few key components in mind as you build. The following are some of the most important aspects of website building for small businesses.
Which CMS Will You Use?
Content Management Software, or CMS, is software that many website owners use to easily build and maintain their websites. The CMS platform you choose will depend on what you plan to do with your website. Retail websites typically use CMS platforms like OpenCart, osCommerce, Magento and VirtueMart. WordPress and Joomla are CMS designed for websites of all other types, especially sites that are intended to receive and publish regular updates.
What Type of Hosting Will You Need?
Choosing a company to host your website is only the first part of nailing down a hosting plan. Go with a hosting provider that provides competitive pricing, reliability, and flexibility. Once you’ve chosen the company, you’ll need to choose between various types of hosting packages. These include free, shared, dedicated, cloud, etc. The type of hosting you choose will heavily depend on your needs and how well you can manage the website on your own.
Choosing Your Template and Plugins
Depending on the CMS platform you initially chose, you’ll have access to a wide range of free/paid plugins, templates, and features to use with your website. A Ballantine website development specialist says a good site design should engage customers while enhancing your brand, so it’s important to choose the right template. Many template designers create various templates geared towards particular industries. For example, there are many templates available for businesses or agents who sell real estate. Likewise, chances are you can find a vast amount of industry-specific plugins to use for your website.
Developing Your Content
The most tedious part of building your first small business website will probably be filling it with content that your future visitors will use. For example, if you’re building an e-commerce website, you’ll populate your database with all of your products/services, support pages, FAQs, etc. Because it takes lots of valuable information to make a website usable for visitors, this process takes time and attention to detail. If you don’t have the time to invest in content creation, consider bringing in a third party to help speed up the process.
Launching and Marketing
Once your template is set and your content is ready to publish, you will launch your website and begin marketing it to draw visitors in. Website owners typically utilize a combination of SEO tactics, on-page optimization, email marketing, and other strategies to get the word out about their websites. However, if your website offers valuable content, you likely won’t have to do much horn-tooting to draw attention to it.