How to create a website free of cost?
This remains one of the most frequently asked questions by many small business owners who are vouching to enter the online market in hopes to expand and grow.
Now, before we look into the process of creating a free website, it’s important to understand that “Free” is a relative term here and honestly, there is no way you can get a totally free website. That’s because while various platforms offer small businesses a fast, effective and free way to design the websites, there are various strings attached to it.
Below we will be taking a detailed look at ways to create a website for your small business in cost-effective ways!
How to create small business websites in simple steps?
Step 1: Get yourself a domain
If you aren’t well-versed with the domain, it’s the address (URL) of your website which will be used by users to reach your small business website. So, we delve any further in our quest to create business websites, it’s important to look into the domain matters.
There are various platforms where you can search the desired domain for your business including Bluehost, Hostgator, etc. Such platforms enable you to search out all relevant domains of your choice for free of cost. Now, many times the first domain name you search won’t be available because it would have been taken by another similar business model (unless you come up with a really unique name).
However, there are various options you can avail to buy the best domain name for your small business website. For instance, if you don’t find your desired domain, you can modify the spelling (try Spyder instead of a spider or creative instead of creative). Alternatively, if they desired domain isn’t available with .com version, you can use some other extensions like .net or .org, or instead, you can also choose a local domain extension like .bh, .au, .uk, etc. Choosing a local domain extension can actually be helpful for you in terms of SEO purpose; provided you are looking to expand in a specific country.
How to choose the best small business website domain?
Here are some of the considerations for choosing the right domain for your small business website:
– Consider Keywords: Domains exert a lot of influence over your search engine rankings. It’s the first thing that the search engine crawler crawls through while listing your website. So, for instance, if you are offering “website design services in New Zealand” you can think of search query combinations which users will be using over search engines like “Wellington web design”.
– Don’t overcomplicate – While choosing a unique domain is certainly beneficial in terms of getting the attention of users, too complicated domains can actually backfire. Choose a domain that’s simple yet unique. Also, avoid using punctuations or symbols like dashes which can complicate the domain name for users’ liking.
– Location Keywords: If you are looking to target a specific market like “New Zealand” going with local keywords is the best way to grab users’ attention, as well as getting higher ranks in search engines, domains like “web design Auckland” is more likely to rank in the New Zealand market than organic “website design” domain, which are more generalized.
Step 2 Choose Hosting Provider:
Ok, once you are done with the domain name, the next important step to create a website for your business is to choose the hosting provider.
Now, since we are talking about creating a website for small business, the better place to host your website is to get it from a recognized and reliable platform. That’s because you don’t want to run into errands over which you have limited technical knowledge. There are various platforms like Hostgator, Weebly, Bluehost, and Godaddy amongst others that offer affordable web hosting plans.
Step 3: Creating website content
Well, now that you are done with the prerequisites of creating a website for your small business, it’s time to start developing the content for the website. Now, while you can write the website content yourself free of cost, that’s certainly not recommended (irrespective of your grip on the language and structure). That’s because website content has various technical aspects like Call to Actions, engagement, keywords usage and others that are needed to be considered as well.
Some must include web pages for which you’ll need to develop website content include:
– Home Page: the content for this page would typically be restricted, to the point and informative. Here, you will have to introduce your business including your location, services/products offered and probably few lines that describes your business (just enough to set the tone)
– Products/services: Here you will be listing and describing all your services/products offered by you. Now, as a small business, you don’t need to create multiple pages for individual products/services, rather make a single page with a brief description for each service/product
– About Us: The content for this page will be all about your business background, uniqueness, and organizational memberships. Here you will try to relate with the customers by writing the vision, mission and success story of your business and how you intend to bring different to users’ life with your products or services.
– Contact Us: This is an important page where you have to list down all possible communication channels by which users can reach you. A typical contact us page should include information like physical address, phone number, mobile number, online contact form, and email.
Step 4: Design Your Website
Lastly, it’s time to design your website. Now, there are various platforms that let you create a free of cost small business website like WIX. These free of cost website builders are pretty easy to use and offer great utility for small businesses who are looking to save cost on website design and development. However, websites build using these free website builders doesn’t offer much customization options and you would have to suffice with the most basic designs.
Alternatively, you can also create a website for your small business by hiring a freelance designer or a web design agency. Now, both of these options would include some cost but then as we said earlier, there is no free lunch in this world, investing some amount would definitely help you get a more robust and professional designed website for your small business.
