When you run a business, your website is going to be one of the most (perhaps the most) important tool you have in terms of marketing and visibility. Setting up a website can be a daunting task for those who have never attempted it before, and that can put people off as they don’t even know where to begin. If this sounds familiar, take a look at these useful tips so that you can gain the confidence to make your website the best it can be.

Have A Purpose
Before you even begin to build your website, you will need to determine its purpose. Of course, the main aim of any website is to promote the business behind it, but there are varying ways to do this. The purpose of your website might be for information so that those who want to know more about your business can come and find out what they want to know. Alternatively, it might be more focused on e-commerce, and bringing you an additional income stream – it might even be your sole income stream.

Knowing what you want your website to do for you is the first step in working out how you want to build it. Alternatively, if you would prefer an expert to build it for you, you can take a look at this website. If you do employ a designer to make your website for you, you will still need to let them know what you want from your website, so this knowledge is essential.

The Hosting Company
Just taking a look online will show you how many different hosting companies there are, which means that there is a lot of choice. The web host is the place where your website is held remotely, making sure that it is there when required so that your customers can use it at any time they want to.

Which web host you choose will depend on a variety of factors including how many visitors you intend to have. It is often best to find a smaller hosting package (so you are paying less) and then, should you need to, you can upgrade at a later date. This means that when you are choosing your host and hosting package, you should pick one that has plenty of flexibility.

The Features
Now that you know which company will be hosting your website and what you want to gain from it, you need to consider what other features you want to have on your website. This could start with finding a template that offers you a lot of choice, and perhaps even ideas that you hadn’t come up with before. It is easier to pick a readymade template and then amend it to suit what you want, rather than to create your own, although do bear in mind that these templates are often available to other people as well, meaning that your site might not look totally unique. A web designer will be able to help you, however, so getting quotes and asking questions is a good idea.

The features that you can have include a guestbook so that visitors can let you know they have been to your site and what they thought, a contact form (rather than putting your email address on your site, which can leave it open to spam), a visitor counter, or perhaps an online store amongst other things.

User-Friendly
Even if your website has all the important information that a visitor might need to make a buying decision, if it is not user-friendly and easily usable, then people will not want to explore it much. Neither will they want to return, or let other people know about your site and its contents.

There are some small but important things that you need to do to ensure that your website is user-friendly. One is to include your logo on every page so that those who are exploring your site can be reminded of who you are at all times; this will help to keep your business in their minds for as long as possible. You also need a good menu system that is easy to use and that links accurately to everywhere it is meant to go. If there are any broken links, or visitors are directed to the wrong pages, then they are unlikely to be impressed with your site or your business.

Your site should also be mobile friendly, as many people use their smartphones and mobile devices to browse the internet, and they do this rather than looking at websites using a laptop. A site that is hard to use on a mobile device will soon be bypassed for one that is.

Content
A website is nothing without its content, but this can often be one of the most difficult things to include. Whatever you include it needs to be interesting and well-written, and keep the tone of the business. That might be factual, light-hearted, formal, and so on. However it is written, the most important thing is that it must be accurate and factual. Your content is all part of your marketing campaign, so the more information you can include the better. Link this to your social media pages for additional website traffic too.

Images
Along with the text that is clearly required on your website, images or video are just as important. This is perhaps especially true if you are selling your products online, as customers will want to know what they look like. However, even if your site is more of an informative one, images are still important – they even help to boost your Google rankings. They also help to make your site look more attractive, and the more interesting they are, the better.

Be careful though; too many images on a site can look messy and confusing, and that can also put people off. As well as ensuring that you have just the right amount of images, you should also check that they are all a uniform size as again, they can look untidy and confusing if they are not.

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