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How to Create a Successful Business Website in 2021
A Simple, Step-by-Step Guide
Updated on May 17, 2021 by Yiming Xuzhou for How to Launch a Business Website
Our guides include affiliate links that may generate commissions at no extra cost to our readers.
Yiming Xuzhou
Developer
May 21, 2021
Your Business Needs a Website, Here's How to Create One
It is estimated that 70-80% of potential customers could be lost if your business does not have a website. From a research study done only 2 years ago, we found that nearly 64% of all small businesses have a website.
To build a new website for your business, you first need to choose a domain name and a host. From there, you just have to put in the work of creating content and driving traffic to your site. Before we get into the step-by-step guide to building your website, let’s go over the pre-building checklist.
This guide is for anyone looking to create a new website for their business.
What to consider before building your website
Building a new website is no easy feat. It is estimated that only about 10% of the websites online are active. Before you embark on a project as big as a website, consider the following questions:
- What is the purpose of your website?
- How can you differentiate your website?
- Do you have the time and resources to actively maintain your website?
- Why does your business need a website?
- What is your brand’s feeling or identity?
One of the most important parts of building your website is understanding your brand. Depending on the type of business you have, your website needs to match your brand and style. This web design process is closely related to how you present the visual look and feel of your website.
Choose your fonts and color scheme
Unless you are planning on using a default font for your website, you may want to do some research beforehand. Many site masters download third-party fonts and install them onto their websites to match their branding.
At the same time, you should begin picturing the type of colors you want to use for your website. Color psychology is a real phenomenon that can drastically impact the way your site feels to a visitor. For example, we use blue for WebsiteLaunch.org to give off feelings of trust and dependability. The reason we do this is that we want our readers to be calm and focused when they are creating new websites.
Choosing a domain name
If you already have a business, it would make the most sense to use the name of your business as your domain name.
However, your domain name could already be taken. If this is the case, you may have to get creative. Consider using acronyms or similar words instead of your full business name.
When you have a list of potential names, run them through a domain name checker to see if they are taken or not. Our host partner, Bluehost, will also allow you to get your domain name for free if you purchase their hosting.
Determine the purpose of your business website
Are you creating a website to provide information about the company? If so, keep reading.
Is the website for selling a specific product or service? If you are, consider making individual landing pages instead of constructing an entire website.
Do you need a direct eCommerce platform? Head here to learn how to make an online store.
Table of Contents
(Using WordPress)
Step 1: Get a Web Host and Domain
All websites have host providers. They give your website a server to store data and information. While you could host your own website, this process is difficult and expensive. A much better option would be to find a dedicated host that can get your website discovered for cheap.
There are two kinds of host services you can get:
- A shared web host – This option means your website will share a server with other sites. It is less expensive than the other option.
- Dedicated hosting – You receive your own private server and don’t have to compete with other sites that may slow you down. This option is more costly.
Depending on your budget, you may want to start with the shared hosting option. This will let you host your website online for less than a cup of coffee a month.
Where do I find a reliable host?
Personally, I like to use Bluehost for many of my websites because of the following reasons:
- It is fast and reliable
- They have 24/7 support
- Costs less than $5 a month
- I get a free domain with my signup
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Additionally, Bluehost offers a one-click setup process for installing WordPress onto your site.
Once you have your host set up, head to this guide to see how you can start building your new website’s key features.
When you have finished your setup, come back so you can learn how to optimize your website for business.
Step 2: Create Content and Pages
If you followed our guide for how to launch a website or how to start a blog on WordPress, you should have been able to install the CMS and choose a theme for your site.
The next step is to create the content that your viewers will be seeing. Your website’s content is organized into pages and posts, all of which need to be fully fleshed out before you properly launch your site.
A good place to start is building your “About” page, your homepage, and your product pages.
How to Create Product Pages
As a business, your products/services are the most important factors of your success. You need to be able to market your products effectively in order to convince consumers to make a purchase.
This means you have to put a lot of focus on crafting your product pages.
But how do you capture more sales with product page design? Let’s look at all the ingredients in a perfectly designed product page.
Get the WooCommerce Plugin
WooCommerce is the most popular plugin on WordPress for creating an online shop. You can easily make new product pages, marketplaces, and landing pages by installing WooCommerce onto your site.
Here is a great guide by WpBeginner for creating a product catalog using WooCommerce.
7 Steps to Create the Perfect Product Page
- Focus on your visuals – use high-quality images of your product at all times. Consumers will have a higher chance of making a purchase if they can visualize the product being used.
- Be transparent with pricing – if your product is worth purchasing, the customer will purchase it. You should not try any tricky methods of pricing as this could affect your overall trust level.
- Show clear prices – customers need to know how much your product costs. You can make this clear by putting the price near the product title or the “add to cart” button. It is also helpful to use larger fonts, contrasting colors, or bolded text to make the price stand out.
- Include purchasing options – this is true especially if your product or service has a high initial cost. Give your customer more options by offering to split the fee into separate payments (like 4 payments of $15 vs. $60 straight up)
- Create informative product descriptions – a customer is much more likely to make a purchase when they can learn more about the product through an informative description.
- Get social proof – getting reviews for your product is one of the best ways to provide proof to new customers. Make sure to keep a star rating element close to your product title and image so consumers can see the social proof as soon as possible.
- Respond to negative reviews – it may be tempting to delete the negative reviews for your product right away. However, this is not transparent behavior and it may cause more problems in the long run. Instead, you should always respond respectfully to negative reviews and try to resolve issues as best as possible.
Here is an example of one of our favorite product page designs. Allbirds clearly shows its product with attractive images, clear descriptions, and transparent pricing.
Step 3: Design your Landing Page(s)
The landing page is the first thing your viewers see when they visit your homepage directly. It is your first chance to leave a lasting impression on many of your leads.
Most marketers view landing pages as the primary method for converting prospects into leads. In 2021, creating multiple landing pages is one key to having a more successful business website.
In fact, companies with 31-40 landing pages get seven times more leads than those with 1-5.
The easy method of building landing pages fast
According to studies, businesses see an average conversion lift of 30% from using optimization software for their landing pages.
Tools such as Leadpages or Unbounce can help you create lots of landing pages that boost conversion with these methods:
- Addressing buyer fears (80% increase)
- Personalizing CTAs (202% performance increase)
- Ranking your business in Google Maps and SERP
Leadpages helps businesses capture more conversions by using templates that work for just about any type of CTA. You can create beautiful pages to announce product launches, grow email lists, get eBook downloads, sell online courses, and anything else you can think of.
Leadpages also allows you to optimize your conversion rates by using A/B testing.
By A/B testing two versions of a landing page, you can see which one is more effective for converting customers.
A/B testing is an extremely effective optimization effort that many new businesses overlook.
Build an email list with landing pages
Another great reason to make more landing pages is to grow your email list.
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways of converting customers and growing a new business. On average, the return on investment from spending $1 on email marketing is an expected $42.
That’s a 4,200% ROI!
Creating landing pages that capture email leads is most effective if you use a tool that doubles as email management software.
ConvertKit is your best option for this because of the following reasons:
- You can create beautiful landing pages with dozens of editable templates
- You can use those landing pages to gather personalized information about your audience
- You can design customized emails that are tailored to each customer’s exact needs
- You can automate your sales funnel and email marketing processes with ease
Step 4: Publish and Maintain
Once you have a fully functioning website that has an organized layout of pages, it is time to check, preview, and publish your site.
At this point, you probably have a lot of landing pages that link from and back to your homepage. This is a highly effective strategy for growing a successful business online.
Before you start promoting your website online, you should be sure to double-check every nook and cranny to make sure there any no formatting issues or spelling errors. Doing this early only means you get to save time later on.
Congratulations! You have successfully built a website for your business. However, the work is not done yet. You should be sure to maintain your WordPress site with constant updates, technical fixes, and design tweaks so that your website stays relevant for years to come. Doing this is the key to building your successful business website.
WebsiteLaunch.org is a free guide for quickly creating and launching new websites in 2021.
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