Creating Business Websites
There are a lot of questions you need to answer for yourself before you begin to look at creating a website. How To Create A Website For My Business is just the basics. If you need help feel free to contact me, Glenn Madden, I am always ready to help.
- Do you have a name for the business?
- Is the name you chose unique?
- Is the domain name that matches your business available?
- What kind of business, online shopping B2C or B2B?
- Have you registered the business with the local government?
- Do you have stock and inventory?
- How will you accept payments online?
- How will you deliver to online customers?
Domain Registration / Hosting
All of these questions need to be answered first. It will determine how your website will function and what is required to support it. The next step would be to register the domain name that matches your business. It is best you consolidate this step by setting up a hosting account. Most hosting providers offer a domain name with your account for free. For example, Ipower.com that I use. Host your website with IPOWER! Keep in mind that Ipower like all hosting providers offers you a very sweet deal the first year but all I have seen including Ipower double the hosting price starting the second year.
Website Platform
For most this decision is simple, use WordPress assuming you are not going to one of the shysters that offers already built websites. Companies like Shopify, Wix, and a few more offer great incentives to get you in, but you will pay later. They are just a platform to begin your site on. But there is a platform even better than all these and it is FREE, WordPress.
Ok, you now have your own brand name domain registered and a new hosting account. You are now ready to install WordPress. I insist on WordPress because it is 100% Free with a GNU General Public License (or GPL). It comes with extra free plugins you need to build the most awesome business website you could imagine. There are extras you can buy and add on later offered through WordPress itself or one of the thousands of developers improving WordPress daily.
After you are your hosting provider has installed WordPress you need to browse through thousands of various themes and decide what your new business website is going to look like. Take a quick look around now https://wordpress.org/themes/
Once you have WordPress installed it has a very easy-to-use menu to guide you through what you need to do. If that is not enough there are thousands of blogs with answers to any question you can ask. Some of the basics you need to add to the platform are security, backups, Woocommerce if you need shopping, and caching applications to improve the speed. This is a list of what I have installed on all websites I develop.
- Neve Theme
- Neve Pro Addon
- WooCommerce
- WooCommerce PayPal Payments
- All-in-One WP Migration
- All-in-One WP Migration Unlimited Extension
- Better Search Replace
- Akismet
- Max Mega Menu
- Yoast
- WordPress Fastest Cache
- JetPack
- JetPack Booster
There are thousands of themes to choose from. I chose Neve after months of trying to make my website faster. Neve will give you the speed you need to keep customers on the website whether they use mobile or desktop for shopping. I use Neve as the base theme for all websites I develop. It is easily customizable to whatever look you want your business to use.
If you are overwhelmed by what I have said then contact me and I can offer free advice for you to get started.