 A simple guide to creating a website for your business
Websites are so ubiquitous these days, it seems safe to assume that everyone already has one. But a lot of businesses—think of solopreneurs and boutique/budding consultancies—don’t. You might feel embarrassed to ask such a basic question as “How do I create a website for my business?” But you shouldn’t be. Everyone, and every site, started somewhere. And it’s never too late to have one for yourself. “How to create a website” is a big topic, but this article is purposely a quick read. We’re not going to get into things like HTML code or even metatags; we’re going to take a much broader, higher-level view of the challenge, and really focus on ensuring that your website does one thing: Drive new business. How to build your business website Step 1: Audience identification For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume that you’re making a site for your own consulting business. It’s a good starting point, and it’s also easy for you to extrapolate how your own site would be the same, or different, depending upon your goals. The first order of business is not a lot of things that you might think it is. It’s not choosing a web-hosting vendor. It’s not picking colors or fonts or even templates. It’s understanding who you want to reach. This may seem like more of a “marketing” challenge than a website-building challenge, but it’s an unavoidable prerequisite. The more you know about your target audience, the better your site will be. Bonus: The more you know about your target audience, the easier it will be to accomplish all the other site-building steps in the process. Let’s say your primary target is C-suite leaders in mid-size enterprises. Drill down from there: Which titles? Which verticals? Knowing these prospects as you do, what types of personalities are drawn to these roles? These questions may seem like they’re out in left field, but they’re actually anything but. To jump ahead for just a moment, consider:
How to build your business website Step 2: Narrative path We’re going to assume, here, that you know what it is you want to sell to your target audience. In our “consultancy” example, that would be professional services. Now think about some recent engagements you’ve won. What was the sales process like? What did those then-prospects want to learn about you, and your business, first? What kinds of questions did they ask? Did they want to learn about your credentials? Did they want to see proof of impressive engagements you’d completed, or milestones you’d helped other clients achieve? At what point in the conversation did they inquire about your range of services, what you do, and don’t, do? When did they ask about your extended team and vendor relationships? When did they ask about pricing—and what did you tell them? The more accurately you can recall this information, the better you can structure what’s called the wireframe of your website. This is just a fancy word for “outline.” The important thing here is to understand what that prospect wants to learn about you from your website, in what order, and what order of importance. This, quite simply, dictates what goes on the home page, and what other pages your site will have, as well as what will populate them. Creating the wireframe is a vital step, but don’t let it intimidate you. If you’re making a small-scale site, you’ll make a small-scale wireframe. Far too many consultancies try to out-Amazon Amazon in their sites’ scale and scope, and that’s a huge mistake, not to mention a tremendous waste of time and resources. (We’ve got a great article on that exact topic, entitled “Your Website Is Too Big,” which we think you’ll enjoy.) While the various pages/topics on your site will vary according to your situation, bear in mind that the market, by this point of the internet’s maturity, is conditioned to expect certain things. Here are some examples of pages that most likely will be on your site, beyond its home page:
That last one—Contact Us—is the most important. You’ll want a prominent link to it on every single page. You’ll want copy and visuals that drive visitors to it; this is what’s known as the call-to-action, or CTA, in ad-speak. How to build your business website Step 3: Create your elements Now that you have your wireframe, it’s time to create the content you’ll use to populate the different pages. Basically, this means “writing” and “choosing pictures.” Sure, it can get more complicated than that, but this is still your main challenge. You’ll want to write compelling copy (“copy” is simply ad-speak for “text”) that presents you and your business in the best light, while respecting the visitor’s time. This is a real case of “less is more.” How much time do you really think that that prospect is going to spend on your website? It’s only a few minutes. So make them count. And cut, cut, cut. Keep it terse. For visuals, there are lots of options. There are tons of stock libraries, and hosting providers usually have their own sources included. (We’ll talk more about them in a minute.) For this stage of your website’s creation, we recommend that you work in good ol’ Microsoft Word. Just write text. No fancy fonts. Save the selecting of the pictures for afterward. The words themselves should be strong; it’s easier to judge them, distraction-free, in a blank Word doc. How to build your business website Step 4: Populate the site This is the step that many newcomers mistakenly think is the first. But it’s actually the last. Think about it. If you’ve done the previous steps well, this one not only logically falls last, but it’s also straightforward and easy. That’s because:
The next step is just nuts and bolts. You’ll need to choose a provider you’ll pay to host the site—anyone from Squarespace to Weebly to GoDaddy, you name it—and use their tools to do the actual building. That part is surprisingly easy. In the old days, this required tons of Deep Geek knowledge and coding expertise. Today, it’s a matter of picking your favorite template, and then pasting in the text and pictures you’ve already created. You click the “Publish” button, and your site goes live. If you want to make changes or update it, you simply go back into that WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) site-editing tool, tweak what you want, and then click the “Publish” button again. As you can see, this last step is not rocket science. But you can also see, now, just how important all the steps leading up to it are. Need help with any of the steps above? From customer-needs discovery to wireframe development to copywriting, we can help you, just as we’ve helped countless others. Contact us today to learn more.
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