Where To Start When Creating A New Small Business Website

There’s a point you reach in every small business where you can no longer avoid the inevitable. A website will soon become a must.

Whether you’re a local who has a storefront or are doing business across the globe through LinkedIn, there’s no way to avoid it. A good web designer with purpose will legitimize your business and make it easier to gain trust.

It seems most people don’t take a business seriously unless there’s a website. Have you ever looked up a restaurant to see their menu only to run into a road block? Sites like Yelp and Foursquare aren’t reliable for finding out everything you want to know about a business.

I often make my way over to their website, how about you?

Whether you answered yes or no, it’s not uncommon. According to Google, 33% of consumers used a business’ website when looking up information about a local business.

That alone makes a good case getting your business online with a new small business website.

When you start looking into a website, there are so many places to go. Not all are equal and of course it depends on how much money you want to invest vs. how much time you want to invest.

There are definitely places you don’t want to start, though.

Where Not to Start

Many people are tempted to start their website thinking about other websites they like or dislike. In fact, most companies you approach for a website will focus on the looks, likes, dislikes first. Even sites that let you create free website such as Wix and Weebly focus on the looks, not the business. That’s a big mistake.

When you’re starting, that’s too far into the details at first.

It’s easy to get lost in the details and end up with a website that cost a lot of money (or time) but doesn’t deliver benefit to your business. How your website looks and feels is important but not until further down he road.

There’s an important balance between the art and the science of your new small business website. The one place you should start is not on the art but rather the science.

Don’t start with the design, look, what’s on each page, or anything like that. If it’s too detailed, don’t get into it yet. There’s one thing you need to do first, one place you should start when creating a new small business website.

Start Here

Before you get into the details, it’s important to take a step back and spend a few days thinking about your goal. It’s surprising how many people never spend time thinking about this because it seems it should be obvious.

It’s not obvious, though.

Not only is it not obvious, it alludes many small businesses. This is why they end up with a boring brochure website that never actually accomplishes anything.

Having a plan of what your goal is for a new small business website will guide the process towards achieving something helpful. Not just any goal will do, either.

The goal for a new small business website should be tied to a business goal. Hopefully you have business goals figured out already. If not, you may be getting ahead of yourself with a new website.

Once you’ve come up with a goal for your new small business website that’s tied to a business goal, you’ll have direction. The direction your goal creates helps guide the creating of every aspect of your website.

Everything will make more sense and be guided towards a goal that will help your website and business succeed.

Are you trying to captures leads for your business on your website? Maybe you’re trying to coerce people with a coupons they can’t refuse.

There are many goals you could come up with. The challenging part is coming up with a goal that helps your website succeed at something useful to your business.

Talk Business Goal

Everything you do for your small business should be purpose-driven. That purpose is why we also build websites with purpose. That means an actionable, clear goal that leads to something you want to happen (that has a benefit also) for your small business.

If you’re thinking about a website and not talking about business and relating everything back to a business goal, you might be wasting your time.

Make sure your website is benefiting from everything you do and helping to build trust and authority online. We work with many businesses to work in developing their website and growing online.