Your Small Business and the Web
Small Business Web Design Tips
Seven Steps for Creating a New Website
Are you getting ready to start a new web site project for your small business? Or are you planning to create new pages for your current website? Here are Seven steps to help you get started.
1. Develop a Design For Your Website Look
First, establish the look and feel of your site so you can keep it flowing through all of your web pages. A web site consists of several web pages. An affordable small business web design company like W3Now can do the graphic design work to create the custom look you want. Or, you can select a pre made template look from a website template site, such as W3 Web Templates, or use a pre made web site template from a web site builder like W3 Site Builder.
Visit web other web sites in your business industry and see what you like and don't like about each one, then incorporate the best of all worlds into your design. Of course, never copy graphics or content from any web site.
2. Outline the Web Pages on Your Site
Links to all the pages in your web site will be accessible from your web site navigation area. Each time a visitor clicks on one of your web site navigation links, they will be taken to a new page on your web site. The navigation area should remain in the same place, with the same links on every web page, so your visitors can move through your site quickly. Typical web pages are Home, About Us, Services and Contact Us. While these are always useful, think of other pages that will fully describe your offerings and add a little pizzazz..
3. Develop Your Keywords
This is the most overlooked, but extremely important, step in your process! Keywords are the 1-4 word phrases for which you would like the search engines to index your site. Give these a lot of thought ahead of time. You will want to include these into your content text on each of your web pages and page titles so search engines can index your site effectively, bringing in visitors who are looking for your services.
Use specific 1-4 word phrases for your keywords to maximize your target audience and separate you from your more broad competitors on the web. For example, instead of using just "web design" for a keyword, W3now uses "small business web design" as our top keyword.
Small business web sites are just a waste of money if they don't bring potential clients to your site, so please don't overlook this step.
4. Write the Text (content) for Each Web Page
Be sure the text on each of your web pages uses your keywords, repeating in the flow of text up to 5 times for each keyword. Use bold, meaningful paragraph headings so visitors can scan your headlines.
Add titles for each web page. Titles appear at the very top of your visitor's browser and on the page itself as a main content area heading. It's highly important to include your main keywords into the title for each page. For example, instead of "About Us", try "About our Widget Services" (if Widget Services is one of your keywords).
5. Put it Together in a Website
Now that you know what your page will look like and what is going to be on it you can create your web site:
A). Use a free web site builder tool like W3 Site Builder
B). Hire an affordable small business web design company to create your site, such as W3Now Web Design.
C). Do it yourself using web site development tools such as Frontpage and Photoshop.
6. Put Your Website Online
How? That is what domain names and web hosting do. You need to put your web site files on a web server (a computer "host") that is attached to the Internet. A domain name is a .com or .net name that people type into their web browser to access your web site.
A.) You must register your domain name so your web site can use it exclusively. W3 Web Domains offers 1 year domain registrations at just $12.95.
B.) You must hire a web hosting company to host your web site on the Internet. W3 Website Hosting by W3Now is perfect for small business web hosting. The small business web hosting plan is just $8.95 per month.
7. Market Your Website
Once your web site is built and online, don't forget to market it. This is also a commonly overlooked step. You will not receive any web site visitors by simply putting your web site online. Think of your site as your actual place of business on the internet. You wouldn't open a physical office on the street and not put your phone number into the phone book, right? You must market your site through search engines, which are online "phone books" for web sites. W3 Site Promote can market your web site through search engines and link exchange programs.
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