So, you own a small business and want to reach your audience digitally? But, your efforts to grow your business are becoming slugged because of the lack of a traffic-generating website. If so, you have landed on the right page.
Building your own website may seem challenging at first. But, do not worry. We understand that you need to create a website that connects with your customers. So, we present five proven and essential factors to consider when creating your first small business website.
Take a look at these five essential tips, and you will kickstart a successful online presence for your business.
Robust Plan
Ensuring the successful implementation of any task or project requires robust planning and continuous follow-up. It is no different for websites as well. To initiate the whole development process, you should first lay out a robust plan and sensible strategies to enhance your online presence via a website.
Begin with analyzing the reason and ultimate goals of your website. Then, calculate the estimated costs of developing an effective website. In addition, figure out an appropriate domain name or website address that goes with your business, can be purchased at a reasonable price, is easily searchable, and does not violate any online rules or infringements.
Finally, determine strategies for continued optimization and defense mechanisms for long-term success. This will boost your digital reach and help protect you against cyber threats. If needed, identify areas where you may need expert human resources.
An Effective and Appropriate Content Management System
Content is king. Even for a website, the content should attract visitors. So, it becomes vital for you to design and develop your website content on the right platform.
Content Management Systems (CMS) are web applications or platforms where you create and manage digital content. Choose the CMS that best suits your needs and makes your life easy. Some popular CMS applications are as follows:]
- Joomla
- WordPress
- Wix
- Squarespace
We suggest you visit the above CMS platforms to explore their suitability with you.
Smooth User-friendly Interface
The most user-friendly websites are easy to use, fast-loading, and optimized for mobile devices.
User interface (UI) and user experience (UX) greatly affect the overall success of your business. If visitors to your business website cannot navigate properly or can’t figure out what they’re looking for, they will go elsewhere, hampering your business potential.
We suggest you try implementing the following to increase user engagement and positive experience:
- Upload graphical content and text that is easily readable, and simplistic, but also attractive.
- Do thorough research on your target customers’ needs, wants, and tastes and match your site with those.
- Make navigation from one page to another coherent and smooth.
- Place appropriate tabs on the landing pages of your website
- Write the most accurate and appealing meta description that attracts the most potential leads
- Include call-to-action (CTA) buttons that direct your leads to the most appropriate webpage
- Design the website layout with as much elegance and appeal as possible
- Ensure your pages load quickly without sacrificing attractiveness and quality.
CMS software can help you with user-friendly interfaces. But we suggest you understand the market trends in-depth and design layouts as needed.
On-time SSL Integration
An SSL certificate (also referred to as a TLS or SSL/TLS certificate) connects the identity of a website to a cryptographic key pair which includes a private and public key. The public key lets a web browser start an encrypted communication with a web server through TLS and HTTPS protocols. The private key, which is securely kept on the server, digitally signs web pages and other documents (such as images and JavaScript files).
This certificate also identifies information about a website, including its domain name and information about the website’s owner. Web browsers and operating systems of an end user will deem the digitally signed content from a web server as authentic if the web server’s SSL certificate is signed by a publicly trusted certificate authority (CA).
As we explain below, select a web host with an easy, one or two-click method to install Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates. This ensures regular security maintenance and other security protocols.
A Quality Web Hosting
Once ready, unleash your website’s impact across the digital spectrum by choosing a quality web hosting service. Select a host that can adapt to your website as your business grows and offers proper support when unwanted difficulties affect your website. We advise using dedicated servers instead of shared servers for your web domain. Dedicated servers, though more expensive, give you a physical server machine. This physical server entirely serves your website dedicatedly and helps your website perform optimally. This makes it more secure than a shared hosting plan.
Small business websites may use shared hosting plans for their cheaper pricing. However, you have to keep in mind the security issues. Shared hosting plans are much less secure than their dedicated counterparts. But dedicated servers could be too expensive for startups and other small businesses in their formative days. So shared plans may be the best options.
Web hosts like solve this problem by providing next-generation, superfast web hosting fine-tuned as per your domain needs. also provides authentic and secure web hosting that blocks hacking attempts on your website. As small business owners, check out the most suitable for your business from ExonHost. You can enjoy script installers, free migration, and automated backups with ExonHost web hosting. For more benefits and advantages, check out the
Continuous Optimization
Growing your success and your business is a continuous process. To survive and thrive in the digital world, you should ensure constant optimization. Ensuring the most optimizable and effective keywords in your website boosts traffic and reach.
People’s choice change, and so do their search habits. Thus, you need to update keywords and identify the ones with the most profitable returns, or “cost-per-clicks”. That’s the most basic magic want of SEO.
Other significant steps you need to take to ensure an effective search-engine-optimized website are:
- Get security with SSL certificates
- Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
- Having enough internally linked web pages on your website
- Implement responsive website designs for easy navigation and use across all platforms
- Putting relevant backlinks (links on other websites with similar or the same content) to your site
- Linking appropriate social media to links to your site
- Getting positive reviews of your business and site
Digital marketing and digital presence are now keys to success for any business. For startups and small business owners, developing a website that attracts potential customers is of paramount importance. But this step is one of the most difficult as well.
We hope this guide helps you at least embark on your entrepreneurial journey smoothly. And with the help of web hosting services like , you can excel at growing your business with your website.