You have started a business and you want a website. Well firstly I should say that this is a need and not a want. So where do you start? What are the basic things I need? How do you go about it?

What You Need For a Website

1. Domain Name

If you want a website, first of all you need a domain name. This is a bit like having a business name and an internet address rolled into one. It should fully reflect who you are and what your business does and what you are selling or service you are providing. So if you are providing a dog grooming service it might not be a good idea to call your company fluffybunniescleanup.co.uk… You may well have to search hard for the right name. Choose in haste, repent at leisure …

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2. Website Design

Once you have your chosen domain name, you will need to have your website designed. There are many ‘off the peg’ design templates you can choose from to purchase and ‘do it yourself’, if you do not need many pages this could work for you, but if you intend to have changeable content and many pages, or perhaps an ecommerce site and you do not have the necessary skills to build it yourself, it is best to pick a reputable website design company. Find one locally you can visit, look at their own website, does it look innovative and on trend? Have they been recommended within your local business community? Check out the websites they have built for their clients, do they impress you?

3. Website Development and Testing

When you have chosen your designer and you have thoroughly discussed your website requirements, agreed on the design concepts and you have seen a wire frame of the layout, the designer can then start to build the website. You will be given an agreed time-frame for this work, just remember that building a website and validating all the lines of code can be time consuming and takes a lot of cerebral activity to search out any bugs.

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The design team will also test your website out in a variety of web browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, to make sure it works correctly in all of them. A good designer will also make sure your website is mobile friendly as well – this means it will stay the correct size for customers to view and won’t suddenly expand and be unreadable on their mobile.

4. Ecommerce Websites

If you want an ecommerce website, customers will need to be able purchase products or services through your website, so you will need a way of collecting payments. There are many payment gateways to choose from – Gateway, PayPal, Go Cardless, and your designer should discuss with you the need for something called an SSL or Secure Socket Layer which provides security for your customer’s payments and personal information on transactions – this is vital and you will have an SSL Certificate for this. Your website address will then show https instead of just http.

5. Website Hosting

Your website is ready but where will it live? Well you will need website hosting, this is a bit like having a virtual shop or office space that the website hosting company rent out to you on an annual or monthly basis. You will also need email hosting because after all, your emails have to go somewhere and they will need transport, and this is where your email hosting provider comes in. Usually your website designer will be able to host your website and emails for you and you can agree an annual or monthly usage package.

So, you are all ready:

• Domain Name purchased – tick
• Website designed, tested and built – tick
• Method for collecting payments – tick
• SSL certificate – tick
• Website hosted – tick
• Emails hosted – tick

All done and website looking very handsome on the internet.

Your website is live, what now?

Well you have done everything you need to have a website, but how is anyone going to find it? You may well need Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Why you ask? Well you need to get your site noticed, after all, what is the point of having a fabulous website if hardly anyone knows it is there. A good SEO specialist will make sure that all the internet search engines are noticing your website. You want to be noticed! So make the most of SEO and optimise your site.

It might seem a daunting process but taken step by step and with the help of a friendly, reputable and on trend design company you can help your business take off in the right direction.

Why don’t you contact isev on 01952 897444 or drop us a message today for a chat with one of our friendly advisers 🙂