How to Set Up a Business Site

An integral part of being known and earning a profit from a business is having a basic website sharing your values. If you have a business, you already know how important advertising is. One of the most reasonable ways to get some response to your business is to send customers to your site. It can be hard, but if you have a small business you can make a website yourself. This article proposes a simple way of setting up a business website.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Register a catchy name. Prices get better every year for registering a name. The problem is there are already millions of registered sites, with thousands more registered every month. However, if you already have a unique name, it will be easier. For example, if you have your name in the business title, like ClintonMedia or ClintonMediaWeb, you will have a better chance. You can adjust this, using things like em dashes, so "Clinton-Media.com" could work. Also, think of how the film industry creates web pages. Often, the names are already taken so the film industry changes the name in some way, for example, "FantasticFourTheMovie.com." The important thing is to keep it short.

2. Find a reasonable web host. There are hundreds of web hosts you can use but be frugal in the beginning. You can get a good web host for $5 to $6 a month, so don’t pay more unless you plan a major site. Do some research on this, checking online review sites. Many web host reviews are not so impartial or good, so try to read articles instead of going right to web host reviews sites.

3. Have a company slogan. If this is a new business venture, you may already have a good business slogan. You want something your customers can respond to and remember. This will be on each page of your site, even in many documents you have, so make it good. You need not pay someone hundreds of dollars. Try to tap into the creative side of your personality, pick a few, and ask other people which sound good.

4. Keep it simple, especially in the beginning. There are thousands of sites that have tons of flash animations and pictures but you don’t need to follow this strategy. A basic business site just needs to look professional. A few pictures, a company logo and good writing is all you really need. You can always upgrade. The first step is to finish the site so it can be done fast and keep it simple so it can load fast.

5. Offer services, pricing, and contact information. In the spirit of keeping it simple, offer as many services as possible on your site. Sometimes you may not want to show your prices for various reasons. If you don’t want to, offer free quotes. Contact information is also crucial.

6. Send customers to your site. After you build a professional looking website, start sending your customers to it. Instead of sending expensive direct mail, start getting email addresses and contacts within the industry. Send polite emails directing them to the site. If you still want to send things like direct mail, you can just send small postcards with your web address.

Tips & Warnings

• There are many high-quality web page builders. If you have no web experience, consider spending a few days studying up on a program like Frontpage. You can even make a page in Microsoft Word.
• In the day and age of spam emails, posting your email address on a site could cost you some time in deleting junk mail. One strategy you can use is to put something like ClintonMedia AT Yahoo DOT COM. Or just put spaces in the email address.