Today, everyone is online. There’s just no way around it. Even old, well-established small businesses have to keep up with the times and modernize. In a few years, businesses that don’t have a website, that don’t market online will soon start to lose their revenue as competition from start-ups starts to emerge. So what can you do? Well, the very first step to take is to start a company website. You might think that the process is difficult but it’s actually very easy. Here’s what you need to do:
Decide on a Domain Name
First and foremost, decide what domain name you need to have. Most people will use their company name. For example, if your company name is ABC Groceries, it’s a good idea to use that as your domain name. However, there’s a likelihood that your company name would already be taken. If you want to stay ahead of the competition and establish your own identity, it’s a good idea to avoid any names that sound very similar to your competitor’s.
You should choose a name that’s not too long, that represents your company, and is relatively easy to remember. Once you do that, you just need to purchase the domain name. According to your budget, you can choose a .com or .za. There are several other options too, but for some reason, .com just carries more weight. We recommend .za because it would help with SEO.
Contact a Designer
Once you’ve settled on your domain name, you should contact a designer. They would be able to help you get the best design for your company. The designer would discuss your goals with the website, suggest the best platforms to use, and help you with the overall look and feel of it.
You need to choose a designer carefully. Even with CMS platforms, a bad designer can compromise the initial impression your website will have on the visitors. It’s worth the money to spend a little extra on your company website and ensure that it’s of great quality. Your first priority should be user experience and second should be design. If you keep these in mind when you plan your company website, you’ll do well.
SEO
CMS platforms like WordPress are already very SEO friendly. The right designer will build on that. He will make sure that your company website has the right structure, the tags and labels are in order, and that it’s compatible across all platforms. Compatibility is very important as more and more people are accessing websites from across different devices and platforms. You should also incorporate SEO techniques on the structure and content of your website. That would allow the search engines to pick it up easily.
Hosting
You have a choice between VPS hosting and shared hosting. If your business website is small and light and doesn’t need a lot of space, shared hosting would be a great option, However, if you’re planning an e-commerce website that’s likely to grow, you should choose VPS hosting.
