A website is a vital tool for your business.
Websites can be cheap to create and for customers your business is just a click away via a search engine result or a link from another webpage.
Include your website address in all of your marketing collateral – from business cards to branded vans – and you’ve created a cheap way for potential customers to find out more and get in touch.
How much does a website cost?
You can create a basic website for free and pay just a few pounds each month to host it online.
There are plenty of free or cheap online website building tools that are easy to use and many let you create a basic website for free with paid-for extras if you’re looking for something more sophisticated.
Alternatively, free tools such as WordPress and Wix make it easy to build websites that range from the basic to fully formed online shops.
This route requires more IT know-how so if you’ve got the budget, consider hiring a website designer.
Get the name right
Your domain name is the web address of your website and it should match your business name as closely as possible.
Web domain companies sell domain names.
Type in your business name to see if it’s available – if not, alternatives will be suggested.
Don’t just pick the first suggested alternatives however.
Instead try adding words that are relevant to your business
For example, ‘www.jackjones.com’ may not be available, but ‘jackjonesbuilders.com’ or ‘jackjoneshullbuilders.com’ might be.
Also think about your top level domain.
This is the bit at the end of your web address and is most often .co.uk or .com.
If you’re a UK-based business then .co.uk might be better than .com.
Build your website
Here are the minimum webpages your site should include:
Homepage
Include the name and logo of your business and a few lines explaining your business, its products and services, and why customers should choose you.
You should also make it easy for customers to do what you want them to do on your homepage.
If you’re selling shoes, make it obvious how a customer can buy shoes on your website through a call-to-action.
Products and services
Detail the products or services you sell.
Add call-to-action buttons such as ‘Learn more,’ ‘Buy now’, or ‘Get a free quote’.
About
Provide more information about your business such as profiles of key staff or a list of professional organisations of which you’re a member.
Projects/customer testimonials
This may feature quotes from satisfied customers or before and after shots of completed projects.
Contact us
Include your address, email, phone number, business hours, and links to any social media accounts you have.
Find out how to build your website with our handy guide.
Make your website easy to find
Most people will visit your website using a search engine such as Google.
To attract visitors you need to rank highly in search engine results.
For example, if someone searches for ‘Leeds plumber,’ you’ll want to be in the top results if you run a plumbing business in that area.
To achieve this, use relevant keywords on your website – words that customers type into Google when looking for a business like yours.
Google’s Keyword Planner tool can help with this.
Learn about how Search Engine Optimisation can help your business grow.
Selling from your website
If selling online, your website will need a shopping cart function and a secure payment facility along with a way to collect payments.
PayPal is popular, as are credit card payment gateways such as WorldPay.
Both are straightforward to add to websites built with tools such as WordPress.
Make buying easy by displaying up-to-date stock information as well as delivery and returns policies.
Find out more about setting up an e-commerce website.
Win customers with SEO
It’s important to optimise your website for search engine rankings to ensure your business is the first result customers click on.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) describes ways to improve where your site ranks in search engine results to increase the number of visitors you get from search engines like Google and Bing.
Search engine ranking is the position your website appears at in search results when someone uses a search engine.
The higher your search engine ranking, the more likely users are to click on your website.
SEO is sometimes referred to as ‘organic’ or ‘free’ traffic, making it a cost-effective way to reach relevant customers because you don’t pay to feature in search engine results.
Successful SEO – achieving the highest possible search rankings – is incredibly competitive but a clear SEO strategy will help you compete.
Valuable content
Your content needs to be unique, relevant, and serve a purpose.
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and think about the questions and challenges they might face and answer them in your content.
Start a blog
Blogging is an effective way to boost your keyword rankings and organic website traffic.
Most small businesses have websites with few pages, which limits ranking potential – the more pages you have, the more opportunities to expand on the keywords you rank for.
Writing a blog means creating fresh content about your expertise and industry that makes good use of longer keywords phrases.
Keep it fresh
Google rewards websites with higher rankings if they’re updated frequently.
Boost your SEO success by creating new pages or adding new content on a regular basis so Google knows you’ve an active website.
Smart images
Make sure all the images on your site have alt tags with keywords on them which include keywords in the filename.
Alt tags provide a text description of an image if the image itself can’t be displayed or a screen reader is being used.
You should ‘say-what-you-see’ when creating alt tags.
If the image is of a woman sat behind a desk, your alt tag should reflect that.
Use social media
Adding content to social media sites means you’re searchable on social media too and links from social media boost your website credibility.
Use internal links
Provide links to other relevant content on your website and link to other related websites as this shows that your business website is a useful resource.
Encourage inbound links
Websites with links from other authoritative and trustworthy sites rank more highly in search engine results.
Ask customers, friends, partners, suppliers, and industry bloggers to link to your site.
Note: The best way to get inbound links is to create great content.
Optimse for mobile
Your site’s mobile performance is vital for improving SEO.
Google uses the mobile version of your website to determine rankings before it looks at your desktop site.
If Google puts that much emphasis on your mobile site, then you should as well.
Understanding keywords
The easiest way to increase your website’s ranking is to use specific and relevant keywords throughout your website.
Keywords are words and phrases people type into a search engine to find websites.
Start by identifying a list of keywords that defines your product or service and that your target audience uses most often when searching for a product or service like yours.
Broad keywords are useful, but they’re competitive, so the more specific and relevant you can be to your business, the better for both you and the customer.
Once you’ve identified your target keywords
Use these keywords in your title tags, body content, headings, image file names, and meta (webpage) description.
This tells search engines such as Google that you consider these keywords most important to your business and it will identify your business as relevant for anyone searching for those keywords.
Find out more about how SEO can benefit your business.
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Chapter seven: Social media marketing
Discover the ways that Start Ups like yours use social media to reach their customers.
Next chapterReference to any organisation, business and event on this page does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation from the British Business Bank or the UK Government. Whilst we make reasonable efforts to keep the information on this page up to date, we do not guarantee or warrant (implied or otherwise) that it is current, accurate or complete. The information is intended for general information purposes only and does not take into account your personal situation, nor does it constitute legal, financial, tax or other professional advice. You should always consider whether the information is applicable to your particular circumstances and, where appropriate, seek professional or specialist advice or support.
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