Over the the next week we’ll talk you through the process of building your very own website and show you just how easy it can be to do.
From the very basics of why you need to have a website, to drawing out what makes a great website work and how to plan what you need to do, how to choose the right type of hosting and Website Builder Tools, how to publish your website and make everything tick smoothly and bring it all alive on the internet and in our final blog we’ll go over all the key elements so you can put what you’ve learnt into building a website you can be proud of without having to spend a fortune on website designers or learn how to do code.
Over the last 20 years Netcetera has helped people just like you build their own websites in over 75 countries around the world. Not only have we provided the tools needed to create these wonderful sites but we have also provided everything else needed to create an online business. From a Domain Name, through to Fast, Reliable Hosting, Backups and Website Protection. We’ve also provided an array of fantastic marketing tools to help our clients make their online business a success. So let’s take a look at some of the reasons why you need a website.
Six important reasons to have a business website.
- Shopfront to the world for all that you offer: Many businesses and entrepreneurs have much more to offer than their customers may realise. For example if you have a sandwich shop, do you deliver or provide outside catering? If you provide marketing, do you also run marketing training? Have you ever thought about whether your customers know the full extent of what you offer? So ….use your website to keep your customers up to date with everything you do and generate additional sales at the same time.
- Keeping it simple for your customers: Some of your customers are just not chatty, don’t want to call directly or personally visit your premises. Many people prefer instead to do their research online first, in their own time. A great website allows them to do just that and then gives them all they need to make that call or visit when they’re ready, in their own time.
- Target your advertising purposefully: How do you currently market your business now? Brochures and flyers, cold calling and direct mail can annoy customers and rarely gets to the decision makers. But when you’re found through a search engine like Google, there’s a good chance that the person searching knows what they are looking for and can make a decision. People don’t want to waste time – they want answers and having a website that has all the information they need is one of the most cost effective ways to market your business.
- Contact details all in one place: Make it easy for your customers to find all your details in one place, phone numbers, maps and travel directions along with information about your team and email contact forms, everything all in the one place to make life easy for your clients.
- Selling online: If you’re selling a product that can be mailed, shipped or downloaded like an ebook for example, there’s no reason why you can’t set up an online store. As soon as this is done, you immediately increase the number of potential clients that you have and your business will have nationwide or even worldwide appeal.
- Engage your clients: Engaging with your customers is essential and these days there are a lot of ways to do it. Either with a blog or email newsletter, through social media such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and Instagram. These mostly free relationship building tools, all need to be used. First and foremost though is your website. Get that right and the rest will follow and you can easily add all of your social media links to your website so your clients can engage with you and follow your business with ease.
You must be interested in building a website otherwise you wouldn’t really be reading this blog!
The next step is all about finding the right tools.
How to find a great website builder
Website builders are great for anybody wanting to put together a small to medium sized website project. These tools are now used by some of the biggest businesses in the world to build their own websites, they also come with a wide variety of easy to use templates and plugins giving you the ability to turn your website into a very professional shopfront for your business’s online presence.
Website builders give you the freedom to chop and swap between a range of ready made off the shelf designs. The great news is that this can be done at any time even after you have spent hours filling your website with content, your content and design are managed separately. So if you have your own branding, colour scheme and company logo you can easily incorporate these into any design that you like.
Our site builder is designed to make life easy, you’ll create a professional website with no technical skills required. Choose different elements to add photos, maps or videos by just dragging and dropping them into place, right from your web browser.
What skills will you need?
If you can use Microsoft Word or Google Docs then you are well on your way to being able to build your own website. When it comes to how your website will look, the visual appearance, it can help to have a basic understanding of design.
You don’t need to be a highly qualified graphic designer, but you should be able to identify the colours and images that are likely to appeal to your customers. There are some great free online design packages available. Use this as part of your learning curve. Do a Google search and remember what the key search words are, FREE Website Tools, FREE graphic design tools etc. If you do this it will help you understand a little bit about how search engines work. We’ve even got lots of help available on how to choose a domain (over 300 names to choose from).
The next step is real simple. If you’re serious about building your own website the first thing you will need to do is to register your FREE DNS, Email and Website Builder account using the below button. It’s quick and simple to do online and once done, you’ll be all set up for tomorrow’s blog.
Don’t forget to join us the same time tomorrow where we’ll look at how to plan your website.
Questions?
Why not speak to our friendly team today to find out what our services can do for you, or for any other queries, please call 03330 439780 or Chat Live with one of the team