There are three fundamental steps to creating a small business website. Each of these steps can be done in-house or hired out, depending on your resources. The purpose of having a small business is to provide your audience with better insight into your business than what they might receive from a company brochure, so be sure to take this into account when developing your website content.
Planning A Small Business Website
Planning a website carefully will help achieve your goals. During this phase you will decide what information to feature on the site, how it should be organized, and what “calls to action” your customers will respond to; in essence, what you want them to do while or after visiting the site. This is also the time to figure out how to incorporate your branding into your site, including colors, logo, company name, etc. It’s also a good time to purchase a domain name that will represent your company well online. Memorable domain names are usually either short, include descriptive keywords, or both.
Small Business Web Design and Development
This is where the “rubber hits the road”. With your designer/developer (usually 2 separate people) you will figure out what platform your site will be developed with, a protocol for draft approvals and communication, and a schedule. Having the information on hand from the “planning” stage will help give your designer and developer a better idea of what you are trying to achieve with your site.
Small Business Website: Launch, Marketing, and Measuring
Before your website “launches” – or goes live – you will want to make sure you have an analytics tool (like the free Google Analytics) installed on the site. These tools give invaluable insight into user behavior that you can use to tweak your marketing strategies. Invest in SEO or PPC to drive some initial traffic. Be sure to include your new website address on any business cards, brochures or promotional materials. Finally, make sure the “influencers” in your industry know you exist. By developing useful content, you can get a significant number of links to further enhance your traffic (and benefit your SEO efforts).
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