In this day and age, with 4.66 billion people online (59.5% of the world’s population) every business needs to have a website. A website has the power to take your business to a whole new level.
It allows you to reach an audience that would otherwise have remained inaccessible to you.
Additionally your local customer base expects to have an online presence and will at some point attempt to contact you in this way.
The question for most businesses however is how to go about building a website for your business.
For big businesses, the answer is simple, hire a web developer and leave the task up to them. However smaller business with a small budget may not have this choice.
If you are trying to start your own business with a fully online presence you may also find need for a website. If this is so but you do not have money to pay someone to build one for you, you may consider building your own.
For those persons looking to build their own website keep reading. The information below will help you along.
Table Of Contents
- Choose Your Niche
- Pick A Domain Name And Business Name
- Find Out If Your Domain Name Is Available
- Chose A Web Hosting Site
- Choose A Theme And Apply It To Your Site
- Create The Important Pages
- Join Groups With Your Target Audience
- Build Your Site
- Research Keywords And Prepare Your Content
1. Choose Your Niche
Before You even begin to build a website it is imperative that you choose a niche and identify your target audience. You should know where your target audience hang out, what their interests are and how you can reach them.
2. Pick A Domain And Business Name
The smartest thing is to ensure that your business name and your domain name are the same. This is because most people expect this.
So if your business is A Round World. The general expectation is that your URL or domain name would then be aroundworld.com.
When the business name and domain names are different customers will find it difficult to find your website. As such choosing matching domain and business names removes confusion.
The dot com is not a coincidence either most websites today uses the dot come domain and it is the one your customers will be expecting.
Working With An Established Name
If you own a business already this may seem like a no brainer. You will want to use that name on your website. However this may not be so easy.
If the domain name you are aiming for is already in use you can either choose another domain name that does not match your business, go for the same domain without the dot com extension if it is available or offer to buy the domain name from the user.
You may also choose to rebrand your business. Of course if this is a large, successful business rebranding should not be taken lightly since it can severely impact your business.
Register Your Domain Name
Once you have chosen your domain name you will need to buy and register it. You may do this on GoDaddy, Wealthy Affiliate (if you are a member), Bluehost, HostGator, etc.
3. Find Out If Your Domain Name Is Available
Before you can buy or register a domain you need to find out if it is available.
So here is what you do go over to Jaaxy. If you do not have a Jaaxy Account yet just sign up for one. Your first 30 searches are free. No credit card required.
Once you have an account set up type the proposed name of your website in as a keyword. Next click Find Keywords.
You may use Jaaxy to find out if your chosen domain is available. If it isn’t, you may continue to search for other domains or use one of the alternatives provided.
Where the exact name you wish to have shows up, at position 1, click Domains. The result should show which of these domains is available. If it shows .com then this mean that the dot com version of that domain is available.
Where dot com is not shown you may use the other versions shown or choose another.
4. Choose A Web Hosting Site
There are many sites that will host your site for you for a small fee. Some of these are Wix, Wealthy Affiliate. bluehost, Hostgator, Green Geeks and Hostinger.
Bluehost, Wealthy Affiliate, all offer free as well as premium WordPress themes.
5. Choose Your Theme And Apply It To Your Site
On the hosting site you may choose a free theme then use the site builder to build your website in under a minute. My own belief is that you should use a theme at east three months before committing to it.
At the end of this period if you are satisfied with your chosen theme you may go ahead and purchase it. If you are satisfied with the free version you may continue using this instead of upgrading.
Instead of just choosing a random theme you may also read customer reviews so as to learn from other customers who have some experience with it.
6. Create The Important Pages
The most important pages every website should have are the About Us Page, Contact Us, Affiliate Disclosure(If there are affiliate links on the site) and Privacy Policy.
7. Join Groups With Your Target Audience
Now once you have set up your website and have identified your target it is imperative that you join groups that contain your target.
This gives you an insite into their interests. You do not need to be sharing your content within that group. Rather the information within the group would give you clues as to what your target audience is interested in.
This provides a guide for what content you should put on your website.
You may find these groups on platforms such as Facebook and Quora.
Alternatively you may investigate what your competition is doing and what is working for them. These are the same things that are likely to work for you.
The goal in this instance is to look for ways to improve on what they are doing so as to stand out from the competition.
8. Research Your Keywords
Once you know what your audience is interested in you need to research the keywords related to the topic you are writing. If you do not know how to find keywords or how to choose the best ones be sure to read How To Find Keywords For Websites And Rank On Page One.
When you have chosen several possible keywords be sure to also search the keyword and observe the sites that are ranking on page one for this particular keyword.
If the sites ranking on page one are some well established sites it may be harder to rank on page one for this particular a particular keyword.
9. Prepare Your Content And Publish It
Once your keywords are chosen it is time to prepare your content and publish it.
Prepare the subheadings around which you wish to base your content. Once this is done, prepare your best post trying to give all the valuable information you have at your disposal.
Once this is done just go ahead and publish that to your website.
Because content needs to be published frequently I typically like to prepare mine and publish it every other day to my website.
This helps my content to develop trust as well as increase traffic.
Conclusion
In today’s world every business should have a website. This does not mean that you need to hire a third party to build you a website.
In 2021 it is pretty easy to build your own website without any previous knowledge or technical skills.
If you have any questions or comments about how to build a website be sure to leave me a comment in the comment section below.
Before You Go
If you would like to learn how I became an affiliate marketer and started an online business be sure to read about my journey here.
If you would like to join the Wealthy Affiliate Community and learn how to build an affiliate marketing business be sure to click here and come on in.
The first ten courses are free. There is no credit card required.
What are you waiting for? Give it a try. What do you have to lose?
I will be there to guide you throughout the journey.
Candy Benn