A survey carried out by Yodle during 2013 found that a staggering 52% of local businesses still had not published a website to promote their products or services.  Fortunately this figure has decreased over the years, to around 30% (although many of these do at least have a Facebook page).

For many the perception is that it will be too time consuming or cost prohibitive, yet there are some fabulous resources available to enable you to get a business website up and running quickly and at a reasonable price.

So what are the basic elements you will need?

1) A Domain Name

A .co.uk domain name usually costs around £5-£6 for 2 years, whilst a .com is generally more expensive, circa £12-£15.
For more information, take a look at my article: How To Search For & Buy A Domain Name.

2) Somewhere To Host Your Website

Whilst you can get deals which bundle you domain and hosting together, I recommend you keep them separate. Website hosting plans for a single website can start from as little as £35 per annum and many have the ability to upgrade as your site grows. For more information, please take a look at my article: Choosing A Web Hosting Company

3) A Software Platform To Build Your Website On

This can also be referred to as the ‘Content Management System’.

For most small business, including some basic eCommerce sites, if you want to give yourself a headstart in terms of achieving good Search Engine Rankings I recommend you use WordPress.org (NOT wordpress.com, which is a 3rd party platform) to build your website.  This software is free and if you follow the guidelines in part 2 above and select a hosting company with cpanel access, installation of wordpress is very easy.

4) The Text And Images To Go On It

Your website is your sales person in print – think about the words you use to describe your products and services to your potential customer when you are face to face with them or talking over the phone.

5) A Way Of Capturing Contact Details From People Who Visit Your Site

Unless you are very lucky, it is usually only a small proportion of visitors to your site who are ready to buy.  So you need to have a way of putting them into the top of your ‘sales’ funnel. This can be achieved using Email Marketing / Auto responder Software. Please read my article to find out more.

6) If You Plan To Build Your Own Website – Someone To Teach You How To Do This

I love to help people get started with wordpress and am happy to talk to you about the process I would use to show you how to build your business website.  I  offer tuition via live one-2-one Zoom calls (Zoom is a free software), which has the ability to share screens so you can watch me and visa versa.  For more info, please contact me.