Creating a great website is an essential part of any business’s success. You're probably already working to increase your client base and scale your small businesses with an attractive, SEO-optimized, user-friendly website. But if you've never done it before, you probably need some tips.

If done poorly, your website can actually deter people from working with your firm, and make you look unpolished to your audience.

This article will help you understand the basics of launching a business website for the first time. From choosing a domain name to launching it and analyzing the results, learn more about how to develop a successful site for your company.

Choosing a domain name for your business website

Creating a successful business website requires more than just throwing up a page with a few details. Choosing the ideal custom domain name is one of the most crucial processes because it will be the basis of your website and the primary means of consumer discovery. 

First, the website address should be easy to spell, pronounce, and remember. Ideally, the domain should also be related to your business name or services. You could want to register a domain name like www.xyzwidgets.com if, for example, your business is called "XYZ Widgets." Consider utilizing a tiny variation, such as www.xyzwidget.com or www.xyzwidgetz.com, if the exact domain is unavailable.

A brief and straightforward domain name should be chosen as well. Make the domain name as brief and straightforward as you can. Additionally, use numbers, special characters, and hyphens sparingly, as these can be difficult for customers to remember.

More importantly, ensure the domain name is available and still needs to be taken. You can easily check domain availability using a domain registrar like GoDaddy or Namecheap. Once you’ve chosen an available domain name, you can register it and begin building your business website.

Creating a website for your business

Once you’ve chosen a domain name, select a platform or web hosting services to design and build your website. Various hosting company options are available, ranging from a WordPress site to custom-built solutions. You’ll want to select a hosting provider that’s easy to use and customize, has many features, and comes with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools. You’ll also want to ensure the web host you choose is secure, reliable, and capable of handling much traffic.

Also, you need to choose the content on your website. This could include a contact page, product pages, internal and external links, and blog posts. You’ll want to ensure the content is engaging, informative, and SEO optimized. You’ll also want to update the content regularly to keep your visitors returning for more. Your website can be a useful resource for your company if it has the correct content and web designer.

Designing your business website with a user-friendly platform

Choose a user-friendly website-building platform once you've selected a domain name and made your website's design decisions. This will guarantee that website users find it simple to navigate and comprehend the information offered. There are numerous alternatives available when creating a website. 

A website builder is an excellent choice if you are not tech-savvy because it enables you to design a website that looks professional without having to write any code. With the help of various options offered by website builders, you may alter the website's overall appearance and add elements like contact forms and image galleries.

You can create a website using HTML, CSS, and other languages if you have coding skills. You will have greater control over the website's design, which will take longer. There are various open-source content management systems options, such as the WordPress platform, Joomla, and Drupal.

Most likely, you'll want a code-free, beginner-friendly platform like B12, which combines AI and experts to take more off your plate. In 30 days or less, you get a professional website built for SEO, client use, and lead nurturing. All the client-facing tools you need to serve your audience are built in, including online payments, scheduling, eSignatures, email marketing, and more.

No matter which platform you use, your design objective should be to make your company website user-friendly and interesting for visitors. This calls for a straightforward navigation system and a neat, uncomplicated appearance. The website must also be mobile-friendly to be accessible to a wider range of users. The work spent developing a website with an intuitive interface will pay off in the long term.

Adding content to your business website

Creating content for your business website is essential to the website-building process. The content draws people to your website and helps them understand what your business offers. Articles, movies, images, and other forms of digital material can all be considered content. Creating content relevant to your business is important and helps engage visitors to your website.

When creating content, it’s important to include keywords so search engines can easily find your website. You can also optimize your content for SEO by including links to other pages on your website, adding meta descriptions to each page, and using alt text for images. To make your text easier to read, you should also utilize headers, subheadings, and bullets. It's crucial to provide simple material to post on social media. This will help increase your website's visibility and attract more people. Consider adding social media sharing buttons to your content and “click-to-tweet” links that allow visitors to share parts of your content on Twitter easily.

Finally, creating engaging and relevant content for your audience is important. This means writing interesting, informative, and helpful content for those who read it. You should also regularly create content to keep your website up-to-date and ensure visitors return. You can ensure your website successfully draws in and engages users by producing high-quality content.

Optimizing your business website for SEO

Having an optimized website for your business is essential for your online presence. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the visibility of your website in search engine results pages. It is a key part of achieving success online. SEO is a complex process and requires a lot of knowledge and experience to be done correctly.

When optimizing your website for SEO, you want to ensure it’s easy for search engine bots and humans to find your site. This starts with keyword research; you want to identify the keywords that you want to target and then optimize your content to include those keywords. You also want to ensure your website is technically optimized, including optimizing page titles, meta descriptions, and URLs. Additionally, you want to ensure your website loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, and has a good internal linking structure.

In addition to optimizing your website, you also want to make sure you’re creating content that is useful and relevant to your target audience. This includes creating high-quality blog posts, videos, and other high-quality content that provides value to your visitors. Creating content regularly will help keep your website active and can help increase organic traffic to your website.

Finally, tracking your SEO efforts and analyzing the results is important. This will help you identify what is and isn’t working in SEO, so you can make changes and adjustments to improve your website’s performance. By taking the time to track and analyze your SEO efforts and results, you can ensure that your website is always performing well and that you’re maximizing your visibility in search engine results pages.

Launching your business website and analyzing your results

Launching your business website is the final step in your website creation journey. After you’ve perfected the design and content, you are ready to make your website publicly available. This can be slightly intimidating, but with the right steps, you can ensure your website is launched to maximize your business's success.

The first step to launching a successful website is ensuring everything works properly. To make sure everything will function as planned after the website goes live, test your pages, links, and other features. 

Once you’re sure that your website is ready to go, you should consider setting up a redirect from any old URLs to your new website. This will ensure visitors who have bookmarked your old website will be directed to the right place. To guarantee that your website is indexed and accessible to potential clients, you should submit it to search engines and other internet directories.

Last but not least, you should keep an eye on your website's performance to ensure that it accomplishes your established objectives. This helps you determine which features and content are effective and what needs to be improved. The number of visitors, the length of time they spend on the website, and other crucial indicators may all be tracked using analytics software. You can ensure visitors to your website have the best experience by using the appropriate data.

Start and scale your small business website with B12

Need a professional online presence for your business? Try B12 today to get a website built by AI and refined by expert designers, copywriters, and SEO specialists. Make DIY changes any time you want. Launch in 30 days or less with client-engaging tools like scheduling and payments.