How to Build a Business Website
Image by Coyote Agency, made by Dalle 2
So your business has been running off of word of mouth and a third-party platform for some time now. When people ask you how they can learn more about your business, directing them to the domain link isn’t doing the job. It’s time to build a website - a good one - that your millennial friends can be proud of. There’s a lot to do, and you’re not sure where to get started. By the end of this article, you will be able to make a firmer decision on which platform is most suitable for your site, the amount of money you need to spend to have it created, and what kind of content should live on the site.
Any questions?
Why is a business website important?
Websites serve as a central hub for small businesses to increase their sales, inform their customers about important information, and track data regarding their potential and existing clientele. While many businesses have been able to successfully make sales without a website, their opportunity for growth is limited because they are not taking full advantage of connecting with their customers.
Having a business website allows owners to expand their level of professionalism and presentation, setting them apart from their competitors. Having a custom-made website is the icing on the cake for this and allows small businesses owners to truly highlight what makes their offerings unique and worth the investment to their clientele.
Where can you create a website?
There are a number of platforms where businesses can create their own website. What’s important is finding a platform that is most suitable for the needs of the business.
For e-commerce businesses, with an interest in really growing in the market, a platform like Shopify is extremely beneficial. Shopify makes it easy to create a website in simple steps, and to implement capabilities that allow the business owner to connect with their potential customers. Shopify has plug-ins that track shipping, send SMS messages, create newsletter pop-ups, and more, all while having an expansive and easy-to-modify inventory list. It’s perfect for businesses with a lot of product.
To showcase a portfolio, or basic information about your business, Squarespace is a popular option to easily design modern, sleek, and contemporary sites. While the site also allows for e-commerce, the capabilities and plug-ins are not as practical as Shopify. Squarespace makes it easy to make any brand look beautiful. Their most recent software update allows for you to customize websites by simple drag-and-drop capabilities. It’s perfect for blogging, portfolios, and simple landing pages.
For the business owner that wants to have a site that is dynamic and expansive, platforms like EditorX Wix or Cargo Collective make customization easy. This is a bit more advanced than Shopify and Squarespace, and it leaves room for the designer to get incredibly creative with a custom site. EditorX offers responsive design, and it is sometimes a bit too responsive for the beginning web designer, meaning that if you build the site out with a particular site dimension in mind, ensure that the layout fits in other formats as well. What looks good on an iPhone 13 may not look good on an Android or tablet - and with Editor X, you may have to account for all varying sizes of your website.
An alternative to the DIY site approach is to hire a designer and developer to build your site for you from scratch. At Coyote Agency, we work closely with business owners to better understand their needs as they grow their companies and make site design and build recommendations that can help them accomplish their goals. We work with Squarespace, Wix, Cargo Collective, and Shopify.
What should a website include?
Your website serves as a hub for information about your business. This is how you help people purchase your products or services and learn more about the brand. At minimum, your site should include:
An About Page & a mission statement.
A contact option like an address and phone numbers if you want customers to visit your store
Email contact information
A call to action: what is the biggest goal you are hoping to accomplish? Is it for people to buy the latest product, for them to purchase from your sale category, or for them to attend your next event?
Press and media links if the business was spotlighted by media coverage
Examples of your work or links to your product
Blog: Providing free informative content to your audience is a great way to help drive traffic to your site.
Keywords: Adding industry relevant keywords to your website will help the search engines direct traffic to your page (this is just a minor part of SEO strategy)
Can I build a site for free?
Yes and no. We’re not sure what happened to millennial coding skills after the Myspace era, but it seems like many of us forgot them. It used to be easy for us to create a website from Custom CCS.
If you want a strong website today, that keeps up with the digital age, you’re going to need to pay for some things. Your site domain will cost $5-$20 annually and the website platform will cost $12-$25 monthly.
To have a beautiful website created for you, to ensure that it is up to the standards you aspire to, we recommend having professionals build it for you. You can lean on a designer from a site like Fiverr.com to help create a custom website.
At Coyote Agency, we understand the importance of meeting the client’s needs while also identifying prescriptive solutions in website building that will help you accomplish your most important goals. We won’t only build you the website, we think about all that goes into ensuring it’s successful, from the marketing approach for how you’ll get it out to the world, to the analytics that will help you track the success of your website performance. This level of investment matches the amount of effort you’re already putting into your brand. Book a free consultation with us today to discuss the best approach to getting your website built and getting one step closer to your brand vision.