Welcome to the thorough guide on how to build your business website for free! It’s been proven that every business needs a good website. Today, there is no way around having an online presence for every start-up, small business, or even large corporation. Unfortunately, budget constraints often surface as a common objection and are likely to delay the inevitable. The truth is: you can have an awesome business website for free, period. So, to make sure you don’t miss on the wealth of advantages a good website brings to your business, because the price is too high!
Why a Business Website is a Necessity
Every business needs a website at all times, and there is no exception. Period. Your business needs a website!
A business website is necessary because:
Visibility:
More and more people are searching online and a website will help you stand out.
Credibility:
Your business does not really exist nowadays if it is not online.
Accessibility:
Your website is like a store front that is open 24/7 so people can find you anytime.
Cash:
Your website can do many things including collecting payment for your services!
Transition:
We now have a good understanding of what a good business website can do for your business and it looks like you are motivated! So, let’s take it from the top and see how you can build your ideal website from scratch - for free.
Finding the Right Platform
For you to succeed in building your own free business website, you will need a platform that is simple enough to allow you to concentrate on what you have to say and neighborhoods with low crime rate, er, I mean templates. We will quickly look at 2 of the most commons platforms. It’s also important to mention that I have also personally built my first business website around those 2 platforms! They both are good and bad at the same time: ready?
The 2 most popular platforms to build you first website for free are WordPress.com and Wix.com.
We will most likely use WordPress.com for its interface and number of themes: the interface is easy to use and the themes allow your website to look as good as you want it to be!
We may also use Wix.com, it offers a new growing number of pretty themes and features such as the ability to upload a video background. Also, it is the perfect first step to design your new trendy restaurant website.
Now that you have picked your favorites theme, are you ready to start building it?
Your website design
Your website design is very important. It looks like we do judge book by their covers sometimes! Your website design will mostly be decided by your budget. If you have enough budget, just hire a professional and let her do her thing.
“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire a professional …”
If you fancy doing it yourself, the least you need to know is that your website should be:
Clean: busy catchy website, nobody likes that!
Visual appealing
Easy to navigate
After you have selected your theme keeping all those elements in mind—an attitude capture page if you will, it’s time to customize it:
No two businesses are alike and you have to make that count.
Change the color: if you can match it with your business color chart
Change the font to look like the fonts you have in your business plan! It’s maybe a good idea to put that document business plan up-to-date while you have a second!
Change the layout, try a two columns instead of 1, place your menu at the top or at the bottom of the website, etc.
Still with me? One more thing about your website design.
If we had to do it (almost) all over again today, the first thing we would check is if our website looks good on mobile. Believe it or not, most of the traffic these days is from a phone. Can you imagine if it looks terrible on phone?
Your website content
Your website content is very important too! Well, it’s better be or we are doomed! We will now give you all the insights we have to write a captivating “about” page or attitude capture page.
An attractive “product description as if demand were so high we had to retire from everyone paying for it!
A must-see page we call: testimonial central
The very important contact page
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