HOW TO BUILD A WEBSITE?

1. The Purpose of your Website

2. Custom Domain

3. Website Builder

4. Map out your site

5. Web design for Brand

6. Build your Pages

7. Connect your payment processor

8. Optimize for search engines

9. Check your links and preview the website

10. Publish your website

To succeed in today’s business world, you need to know how to make a professional website. That’s the case whether you’re building a small brick-and-mortar store, an online business or e-commerce company. Even when you’re selling yourself as a brand, either to employers or as a freelancer, you need to have an online presence where people can find you and from where you can grow your business.

1. Decide on the purpose of your website

Before you start designing your website, you need to define exactly what you need that site to do. Are you looking for how to sell goods and services directly to customers, or Sell physical or digital products or services?

Have a place where local customers can find your hours, prices, or other information about your company
Communicate your brand’s identity and message
Post announcements and updates

2. Choose a custom domain

The first thing your website needs is a domain. Your domain is your home base on the internet and the signpost that allows the world to find you. Think of it as the virtual version of your store window.

3. Choose a website builder

The difference is that when you’re building a website, you don’t have to create it from scratch. Many websites offers free website building and publishing services, complete with a drag-and-drop website builder that you don’t need any technical skills to use. A lot of them becomes your website platform and does all the coding for you. You just have to make the web design choices.

4. Map out your site

Here are some ideas to get you started in your website creation process:

A “squeeze page,” which encourages the visitor to enter their email address, possibly to access downloadable content or receive a discount code
A lead capture page where people enter their name and contact data so that you can contact them with more information
Product or service information pages can be added to your website
An “about us” page with information about your company
A page for customer testimonials and reviews
A pricing page, which is important for businesses that have subscription or service levels

5. Select a web design that fits your brand

Your website is one of the best tools you have for establishing your brand. It highlights all of the major elements of brand identity:

Logos
Typography
Color
Packaging
Written content

6. Build your pages

Your main goal is to make the site intuitive, easy to navigate, and descriptive of your business. Build your navigation menu so that visitors can find the pages they're looking for quickly. Use dropdowns so that the bar doesn’t get too crowded. For example, nest them under a “services” dropdown heading if you have multiple services.

Always have a descriptive heading at the top of every page so visitors know what they’re looking at.

7. Connect your payment processor

Once you’ve completed the mapping process, have built your pages, and are happy with the look and feel of the site, it's time to move on to the next step. Those that have an e-commerce site must choose a payment processing provider. Anyone doing business online should be able to accept different forms of payment online.

8. Optimize for search engines

SEO, or search engine optimization, is something that every business website owner has to think about. It’s the practice of creating and optimizing your content to connect based on how your potential customers look for your products or services in search engines.

Every search engine has a different algorithm, but Google handles approximately 92% of all searches, so it’s best to optimize for Google. Whenever someone conducts a search, Google will show them the web pages that it believes to be most authoritative and relevant to that search. Making your content search friendly means creating content that Google wants to show everyone.

9. Check your links and preview your website

If you can, let someone else look at your website and click around a bit so you get a second opinion on how well it works. You can send the site to a select few to ensure that the site is functioning correctly and the navigation makes sense. Not only should links and buttons work as planned, but the website should also be free of typos and grammatical errors.