Starting a Website for your Business

Every business needs a website.  To be competitive, you have to do what the competition is doing and do it better. The truth is, a Facebook account won’t cut it if you’re serious about growing and expanding your business. You need a website to stay competitive, to earn trust, and for marketing and search visibility.

So where to start?  Here helpful list to help you make smart decisions.

Find a Good Web Host

Web hosts are a dime a dozen.

If you’re just starting out, you probably don’t have the budget to hire a programmer to code your website. Search for web hosts that offer modular, user-friendly design features.  There should be enough variety so that your website doesn’t end up looking cookie-cutter. And if you do eventually want to hire a programmer to customize your site, make sure the web host service is just as useful for professionals as it is for novices. Look for mention of a script library and raw access logs at the very least.

When doing your research, keep in mind and look for these features and services:

• Are there hidden fees?
• Is there tiered pricing, scalability and room to grow?
• How are the load times?
• If you are inexperienced, is there a free site builder?
• How long has the company been in business?
• Does the web host have a dedicated customer service department? Are they easy to reach?
• Is their contact info displayed prominently, and is there an option to both call and e-mail?
• Does the web host offer help pages and resources to guide you through the process of setting up your site? Try calling the customer service phone number just to see how easy it is to reach a real person.

There are many large hosting companies, but sometimes large doesn’t always necessarily mean better.  They may have issues with having too many customers or insufficient staff.  A host like webhost.pro, for example, provides flexible packages, no hidden fees, fast load times, monitoring, installation, tuning, a 24/7 support team and has been around since 2001.

Choose a Memorable Domain Name

When you finally find the right web hosting service, the first thing you’ll have to do is choose a domain name. Above all, make it memorable and uncomplicated (avoid hyphens, numbers and unconventional spelling, for example) to ensure your business can reap all the benefits of word-of-mouth advertising.

Choose a Responsive Design

When done correctly, responsive design can improve user experience. Online retailers utilizing responsive design are generally seeing consumers respond positively to the new, more user-friendly experience with decreased bounce rates and increased page views from mobile and tablet sessions.

A fully functional responsive designed site done right can boost conversion rates. Responsive sites make it easier to view products and content. Almost every person these days has a mobile or tablet device, and receive online store emails on these devices.  As users and key site traffic stats such as page views increase, consumers are more likely to complete transactions on mobile and tablet devices, especially when the check-out process is catered to these devices. Studies show that major brands have noticed a mobile and tablet conversion rate increase of over 20% since making the switch to a responsive designed site.

One of the major challenges with websites was the need cater to various size screens, sometimes having to develop multiple websites to cater to these devices and resolutions. With a responsive designed site, the same content is utilized for desktop, mobile, and tablet devices, scaled to the resolution of the device. All traffic via mobile and tablet devices through a responsive designed site will utilize the same, thus increasing the total site traffic and backlinks to that URL, boosting rankings on search engines.

Search Engine Optimization

High-quality content has always been regarded as a white hat SEO technique that improves your website position in search engine rankings. Topics you might cover include informational articles about your products or services, interesting images, and reviews that gives more data about what people can expect from your services.

Content should be audience-friendly and engages your readers. Make the best use of your skills, creativity, and inexhaustible talent to assist you in promoting your services, products and brands in an engaging way, by embracing an accessible writing style.

Hire a legitimate search engine optimization company or do it yourself.  Search engines have a very complex system for determining the value of a given link, but they do all agree that links are among the most important factors in determining the relevance of a particular site to a given query. That’s one of the reasons why, for example, websites that have been around longer are given more weight, but even links from new sites can be beneficial. Obtain links to your site through guest blogging, social media, directories, local directories, or simply ask for a link.

The topics mentioned above are great places to start.  The work doesn’t stop at simply just building a website however.  Use other websites and platforms to your advantage.  Create accounts on various social media platforms, create content, share, optimize for higher volume or niche traffic.  Do anything and everything to make your business marketable, convert visitors into customers, etc.  The sky is the limit.

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