How to Build a Website for Your Small Business: From Scratch (no experience needed)
starting your own business is exciting but scary at the same time there are so many things to consider one of which is building a website which most business owners find a daunting exercise but let me tell you a secret it doesn't have to be how do I know I built my first website 20 years ago yes I'm that old and many more since mostly for small business owners and I can tell you that building a website today is easier than it's ever been before learning to code is no longer necessary you can design a professional looking website yourself with no prior experience in a weekend using drag and drop technology which is now available on most website Builders but before blocking the next available slot in your calendar so you can create an eye-catching website for your business there are many steps you must consider if you want to make it effective and attract as many customers as possible which ultimately should be the main goal of your website in today's video you're going to learn what it takes to build a professional looking website for your small business from scratch without breaking the bank that also drives customers through your doors so your business can grow so let's get cracking before I go through the essential steps you need to take to build a website you might wonder if you really need one in the first place after all posting content regularly on social media platforms used by millions should be enough to promote your business and get new customers right not to mention it's also free even local butchers nowadays have a Facebook page an Instagram account a Twitter account and in some instances even a tick tock account so surely it must be an effective online strategy and building a website may seem like a waste of time and money but while social media platforms are helpful it is estimated that Google handles 5.6 billion searches every day half of which according to webfx.com are from people searching for a local business so if you don't want to miss out on a ton of prospective customers I strongly suggest you build a website if you want your small business to be found by local Searchers on Google although this is by far the strongest reason why you should build a website it's not the only one most people today expect businesses of any size to have a website once again according to webfx.com 97 of consumers check a company's online presence before visiting them not having a website is likely to negatively impact your reputation and prevent searches from getting in touch with you also unlike social media your website is a platform where you can integrate features such as email capture online chat a Blog and much more all of which you're likely to use as your business expends there are plenty of other reasons why building a website for your business is important but these should be more than enough to convince you so what should you do next foreign the very first thing I would advise you to do when building your website is to Define your branding this could be the topic of an entire video in itself if we were building a website for a huge brand but for today's video we're going to keep things simple for a small Business website I recommend you define three fundamental branding elements they are your preferred colors your logo and your fonts for consistency purposes it's incredibly important to Define these from the get-go think of this step as creating an ID card for your business you're likely to use these elements everywhere not only on your website but also on your social media platforms your business cards and so on the aim is to help customers recognize who you are at a glance no matter where they find you there are many platforms out there where you can hire professionals to do this for you fairly cheaply but if you're like me you'll want to keep your costs to a minimum and do as much as possible yourself using free tools when it comes to choosing which colors to use when building a website I go to a website called coolers.com within seconds you can create palettes
with perfect color combinations for your designs all you need to do is to click on the start the generator button and press the space bar on your keyboard until you find a color palette you like if you like a specific color from a palette you can lock it and generate more combinations based on that color if you already have a color in mind you can set it and generate further palette on the back of it once you're done you can download your palette in a format of your choice so you can always refer back to it whenever you create anything design related for your business the HTML code for each color will be embedded in the file which will become super handy when building your website you may already have a logo but if you don't and want to design your own I recommend you use canva.com canva is an online graphic tool tool you can use to create posts for your social media accounts business cards presentations and also business logos they have tons of out of the box free logos which you can customize to fit your needs you can remove or add elements and change the colors for example this is when your color palette will come in handy to check out canva.com click on the link in the description below the last element to Define is the font types you want to use for your site there are thousands of options to choose from but I recommend you keep it simple I normally use some of the most popular fonts such as Ariel or verdana which are available on all website Builders and easily readable on the web the trick here is not to work with too many font types otherwise your design might end up looking very amateurish I tend to go for a combination of two to three font types maximum whichever font types you decide to use make sure they work well together for example Ariel and vadana Ariel and Times New Roman and Aerials and Georgia are all good combinations obviously this is only a recommendation feel free to choose whatever works well for you once you've defined your branding it's time to move on to the next step foreign this step is a very straightforward one all you need to do is make a list of the services or products that you offer this exercise will help you define the blueprint or structure of your website if you like just open an Excel or Google spreadsheet and start listing what you are offering let's say you're a dentist for example and you offer the following Services teeth whitening dental implant crown and bridges emergency dentist dental checkup and so on Beyond defining the structure of your site it will also help you understand how many pages you'll need to build for your website each service will need its own page if you want to maximize your chances of your business being found on Google additionally you'll need to create a home page of course an about this page and a contact us page which is standard on all website add these to your list as well once you're done create a single tab for each of your pages on your sheet and add the following information to it name of the page title tag meta description and header one you might want to format your layout to make things clear you're all done before moving on I'd like to ask you a favor if you like this video so far please hit the like button as it helps my channel grow and allows me to continue making more videos so I can help you out further thanks a lot let's move on to the next step for your website to be found on Google you need to figure out what Searchers are looking for and match it with a content on your website the only way to do this is by doing some keyword research once again we're going to keep things simple and free here using a Chrome extension head over to the Google Chrome Web Store and search for an extension called keyword server and install it once you're done go to google.com and search for one of the products or Services you listed in a previous exercise on your spreadsheet let's go with teeth whitening but add the location where your business is based let's say our fictitious dentist is based in Las Vegas for example and click on search keyword Surfer will overlay the estimated monthly search volume for this particular keyword along with a click value for it if you were to run a Google ad campaign on the right hand side of your screen you'll see a table which contains keyword ideas based on your search go through the list and start the ones you think are relevant to your service or product don't forget to start a keyword you searched for by default the tool will search for keywords on the US market you can change it using the drop down menu next to the flag once you're happy with your selection click on the clipboard option at the top of the table and the three dots and Export the file as a CSV open the file then copy the keyword table on the tab of the page for which you've done your keyword research replicate the same process for all your pages special note for your home page you should be targeting the primary service you are known for which in this case could be dentist Las Vegas or dental practice Las Vegas don't worry too much about doing keyword research for the about us page or contact us it's not really necessary to optimize these for search engines you've now defined your business branding your website structure and the keywords you should be targeting for each page time to move on to the next step foreign content creation is a fairly easy exercise it is likely the step that will take you the most time you want to make sure your content is compelling enough so visitors want to pick up the phone to do business with you as opposed to your competitors prospective customers are most likely to come across your business for the first time through Google search results Google search results are a very tough environment as your business will be listed side by side with most of your competitors in order to stand out you'll need to craft a title tag for your pages that Searchers want to click on it's also a crucial element if you want your business to rank in Google for those of you who don't know the title tag of the page is an HTML piece of code you add to your page which is what shows in search engine results don't worry you will not have to code anything all website Builders have title tag field set as default when you create your pages all you need to do is locate the field and type the relevant title for your page what is important to remember is that there have to be between 50 to 70 characters and must include your target keywords for example something like Teeth Whitening Las Vegas 5 star rated affordable prices would work well for our teeth whitening page once you've decided on your title tag add it to your spreadsheet and repeat the same process for all other Pages the next thing you'll need to work on to stand out in Google is what is known as The Meta description of your page this is also an HTML piece of code which you can find as a default build in all website Builders while the description of your page will not help your page rank in Google it is a chance for you to entire searches to click through to your site the description of your page should be no longer than 160 characters otherwise it will be cut off in search results I also recommend you include the keywords you are targeting as they will get bolded when people search for them for example something like this would work well affordable teeth whitening in Las Vegas remove years of staining and achieve a whiter smile in just one appointment once you've finished crafting your description add it to your spreadsheet as well both your title tag and The Meta description will not be visible on the page itself they are just for the benefit of search engines and to help your business rank higher time to look at the actual content you want to display on your page once viewers land on it for efficiency purposes your pages should ideally follow a very specific structure it should start with the main heading also known as H1 to which you can add a tagline for the main heading I always recommend you include the keyword you want your business to be fan for once more in our example I would use something very similar to the title tag and simply call it teeth whitening in Las Vegas add this to your spreadsheet the main content of your page will very much depend on what you want to show your visitors there is no hard and fast rules as such just make sure the content is well structured and include subheadings and well-crafted paragraphs the keyword research result table should help you come up with ideas take the time to add this to your spreadsheet in detail for each page it will make your life so much easier when it comes to building your site here is a typical example of what I come up with once this exercise is done remember your job is to convince visitors you're the best possible choice and to call you or email you if you're not sure about what you can add to your pages here are a few ideas that should help before and after images videos customer testimonials FAQs USBS pricing and so on last but not least make sure each and every page also includes a call to action such as call us now book an appointment or something of that nature quite high up on the page as I said this tip will be by far the longest one for you to complete however it will save you a ton of time when you start building your site and will result in creating awesome pages that are search engine friendly time to move on to our next step hopefully you're all familiar with the term domain name for those of you who are not a domain name is a website address that people type in an internet browser bar to access your website while a lot of website Builders offer an option to build a website for your business for free they will not give you the choice of adding your own domain to your site unless you pay for it you'll be forced to use their own domain name which very often will be very difficult to remember like in this example imagine trying to communicate this website address to your customers having a recognizable domain name is Central to the success of your business and a must if you're serious about your credibility long term thankfully getting your own domain and adding it to your site these days is as cheap as buying a coffee from Starbucks once a month so you have no excuse if you're like most business owners you've already thought of a name for your business so your next step is to verify if the matching domain name exists to find out you can go to Dom mains.google and search for your business name anything with a green tick will mean
the domain is available as you can see prices are very reasonable your next decision will be to pick which domain extension is best should you go for a.com a DOT Co dot UK or dot org or something else since this video is about building a site for a small business I would recommend you pick the domain extension that matches your country so if your business is based in the UK go for it dot Co dot UK domain if you are based in the US choose the.com option FR if you are in France and so on whenever possible you might also want to purchase the.com version of your domain to prevent anyone else from buying it and pretend they are you yes it happens you don't have to buy your domain from domain.google by the way there are many other domain name registration websites out there including the website builder platform themselves you should now have all the elements you need to build your website which is what we're going to look at next foreign there are two different methods you should consider when building a website the first one is to hire a professional website designer who will do the job for you based on the elements you've put together in the previous chapters of this video there are tons of options out there but expect to pay a fair amount of money if your budget allows this solution is a very viable one bearing in mind that whenever you'll need to update your site or add new pages to it in the future you'll probably need to contact that person again to do the work which will cost you every single time the second method is a do-it-yourself approach which can be split into two let's start with the first one using Wordpress you've probably all heard of Wordpress before or at least heard the name being mentioned WordPress is an extremely popular software specifically designed to build websites it is so popular it allegedly Powers 43 of all websites on the internet it is also likely that if you hire a professional designer they will build your site using Wordpress I am a great fan of Wordpress myself I have built many websites using it including my own it is extremely flexible and can cater for all your website needs however there are some major drawbacks if you are a complete newbie and decide to build your website using WordPress the learning curve is very Steep and it's unlikely you'll want to spend the time that is necessary to understand how it works also you must remember that WordPress is just a software that enables the creation of a website it must be installed first on a hosting platform which you'll need to pay for so you can publish your website on the internet there is also a technical element which comes with using Wordpress so when your website encounters any issues in most cases it will be up to you to fix them as a business owner the last thing you want to do is waste time fixing your website for those reasons although I think WordPress is a great solution it is definitely not the most suitable one if you want to build a website with no prior experience instead I recommend you use a website builder the two most popular website builders on the market are Wix and Squarespace they are extremely beginner friendly using drag and drop technology and pre-designed templates as well as intuitive navigation you'll have total creative control to produce a professional looking site for your business yourself in minutes when using one of these website Builders you won't have to worry about Website Maintenance or technical errors as they are all handled by the website Builders themselves your website will automatically be optimized for mobile phone displays with no additional work as well as fast loading time despite being once upon a time a heavily criticized for the lack of search engine optimization capabilities it is no longer the case John Mueller who is the webmaster Trend analyst for Google recently confirmed that a platform such as Wix has made fantastic progress and is now a fine platform for businesses website Builders are also very good value for money and they are extremely affordable although Squarespace and Wix are very similar I feel that Wix is a better choice if you want to build a website for your business especially if you are a complete beginner the choice is obviously yours but whichever method you decide to go for I suggest you follow all the steps I have covered in this video first it will make the process a lot simpler and a lot faster if you decide to build a website using Wix you can watch my my tutorial Wix website tutorial for beginners 2022 step-by-step instructions in which you'll be able to build your very own website from beginning to end that's it for today guys I hope you enjoyed the video if you did remember to give it a thumbs up best of luck to you all and until next time happy marketing
2022-08-31 20:46
