8 Steps to creating your own website

 

8 STEPS TO CREATING YOUR OWN WEBSITE FOR YOUR BUSINESS

If you are an entrepreneur who just launched a small/medium business, congrats, you are one step away to achieving financial freedom.

Below are the steps you need to make a website yourself if you cannot afford a professional website developer. However, do note that you need a content creator or writer to insert write-ups and content for each web page of your site. It may not be free but feel free to contact me via email obinnaokeyndeche@gmail.com if you need assistance with this.

So here goes!

The purpose of a website is necessary for the growth of a successful business. Its an important tool for sales, think digital marketing, visibility, communications and marketing (digital) for any type of organization. If you have second thoughts on whether your business needs a website, read my previous post on 9 compelling reasons  why your business needs a website.

A website is more often needed than people think. The price of making a website if using a professional developer varies based on what you need it for. Your business may be into supply, drop shipping, B2B, B2C transactions or fintech.

The procedures are:

1.    Choose the platform and host service that are required for your business. Examples of hosting companies with their links are listed below, I may get small commissions from host companies if you purchase a plan or domain name from any of these links:

-Bluehost;

-Hostgator

-Whogohost

 

There are others out there, but I highly recommend Bluehost due to how easy it is for non-technical users who can get around it. Whogohost , is super affordable and it is easy to use and the price is strictly in naira if you are looking to target Nigerian audience. Feel free to contact me if you need assistance on how you can go about this.

2.    Choose and register the small business website’s domain name using the links I provided in step 1. Domain name is like a business name. if the name is not available, you have to adjust the business name.

3.    Plan the website. This includes the colours, the core pages you need in your site: Home page, About Us, Contact age, Product/Services page and Blog page.

4.    Outline the website content. Brainstorm on what each page of the site should contain. Ensure you have a target audience, not just any audience. Do not do the mistake of creating content for every Tom, Dick and Harry. If your business is Car dealership for younger generation in mind, then ensure the contents appeal to the younger generation. If what you show is sienna cars or 1997 Honda Cars or any old-fashioned cars, the younger audience will not be captivated by your content.

5.    Design and build the website. Ensure you have colours in mind that will appeal to your target audience. Take a look at websites that inspire you. You can use such websites as a guide or template to guiding you. You can choose to check out for ready-made templates if you don’t have the patience to design one from scratch. Colours you may consider are blue, if your target audience are younger generation. Afterall, you rarely hear of anyone who say he or she despises blue even if it is not top of their list of favourite colours. Black is a neutral colour of which you can never go wrong with it.

6.    Publish the website. Just like I said in step one, you need a proper hosting company to make your site go live on the internet browsers.

7.    Promote the website. You have to do a proper keyword research so that your content can be found easily on search engines. This is called Search engine optimization (SEO). Insert opt-in forms so that your readers or audience can easily access your content for either a subscription fee or some form of incentive if need be.

8.    Maintenance of the website. This requires consistent effort. Most hosting companies like Bluehost offer automatic updates to your website plugins to prevent DDos (Direct Denial of Service) attacks. This is necessary if your website has online shopping platform. Be sure to produce new content on a regular basis else your website may become redundant to readers.

     This article is not quite detailed I know. However, I am going to give a detailed tutorial on how you can design, develop and upload your website from scratch. The next article on this will come with screeshots to guide you. Please subscribe to know when next I upload the article. Thanks.