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How to Create a Business Website: Planning, Design, Development, SEO, and Maintenance

To create a business website, you must follow these key steps:

  1. Secure your domain name

  2. Choose a website design

  3. Develop your website content

  4. Integrate your payment system

  5. Optimize for search engines

  6. Establish a content strategy

  7. Market your website

  8. Enable website security features

By creating a good business website, you’ll promote your brand and boost your turnover.

According to Gualtieri, Mike 2009 study, ‘Leaving user experience to chance hurts companies’, businesses with well-designed websites experience a 400% increase in conversion rates compared to those without.

The cost of developing a business website ranges from £1,500 to £15,000 and varies based on several factors including features required, complexity of the website, and the platform chosen.

Step 1: Secure Your Domain Name

A domain name refers to the company website address that you enter into the web browser to search for a specific website. 

A domain name provides a business with a professional image, enhances its credibility, and drives potential customers to buy goods and services. 

Domain name gives you control over your content and provides a professional image. While you can pick any name, it's important to choose a name that reflects your business.

what is domain name

To guide you in choosing a domain name, consider these tips: Choose a name that reflects your business, brand, or services and include relevant keywords. 

Think about your audience and use what resonates with them. Ensure the name is easy to spell, short, and simple for visitors to remember. 

Avoid using special characters or numbers like acronyms or hyphens. Pick a name that can be used long-term, and make sure it is unique and not already in use by someone else.

You can choose a domain name from websites such as DreamHost, GoDaddy, Bluehost, and InMotion among others. 

Registering a domain name for a business involves three main steps. 

First, choose a reliable domain name registrar by analyzing their policies to ensure they meet your needs. 

Next, purchase and register the domain name by providing necessary information such as email, phone, and billing details to ICANN while ensuring privacy protection. Be mindful of the registration duration and associated fees. 

Lastly, familiarize yourself with the domain name contract to avoid any unexpected surprises down the road.

Step 2: Choose Website Design

Website design is the visual layout and aesthetics of a website. It encompasses elements such as user experience, graphics, and overall look that work together to create an appealing and functional website.

Website Design

To create an effective website design, keep the homepage minimalistic by spacing out content, adding imagery, and including a clear call to action. 

Provide a great user experience with intuitive navigation, allowing users to easily find what they need. Use visual hierarchy to guide visitors to important elements in order of priority and create compelling calls to action that clearly communicate what users should do. 

Lastly, apply SEO best practices by incorporating relevant keywords, keyword-rich titles, and keeping URLs short for better search engine visibility.

Intelivita is a reliable web design and development company. Contact us today if you’re looking for a trustworthy web development agency in the United Kingdom.

Step 3: Develop Your Website Content

Website content refers to any written, audio or visual content on a website such as blog posts, photos, videos or podcasts.

The key web pages that require content include the homepage, about page, product page, contact page, blog page, privacy policy page and terms of Service. The essential content requirements for each page are:

  • Homepage: A hero image, a unique header, and a call to action.
  • About us page: Key aspects that make the business unique including background, values, and principles.
  • Contact page: Location, email, address, and phone number of the business.
  • Blog page: Events, product information and offers.
  • Privacy policy page: Spells out how data collection, storage, and usage are carried out.
  • Terms and conditions page: Sets out how the business works including the cancellation policy, refund policy, and privacy policy.

To create effective corporate website content, begin by identifying relevant keywords that resonate with your audience. Then, create a content outline with specific topics and ideas for each webpage. 

Focus on writing an engaging headline and writing high-quality content, incorporating videos and infographics to boost engagement. 

Ensure you use keywords naturally in both the title and the content body. Afterward, proofread and edit to ensure the content flows logically. 

Consistent formatting with uniform fonts, sizes, and styles is important for a professional appearance. Lastly, monitor the content using tools like Google Analytics and make regular updates to keep it relevant.

Step 4: Integrate Your Payment System

A payment system for a company website is a software solution that assists businesses in accepting and processing online transactions. The main components of a payment system include payment gateway, merchant account and payment processor. 

For a payment system to work securely, the following key requirements must be in place: an SSL certificate for data encryption, a robust authentication process to verify user identity, a secure payment gateway with strong fraud detection, strong encryption protocols for data transmission and storage, user education and awareness to prevent errors, and an address verification service to ensure accurate payment details.

An effective checkout process should include key features such as simple and clear navigation, a guest checkout option, secure payment processing, and multiple payment options.

It’s important to have a clear display of shipping options and fees, an email confirmation of the order, a save cart feature, easy access to customer support during checkout, and mobile optimization to enhance the user experience across devices.

Testing a payment system on your business website ensures that transactions are secure. To effectively test your payment system, you need to;

  1. Create a test account with your payment gateway
  2. Test for successful payments, declined transactions, insufficient funds, and invalid cards
  3. Verify order information to ensure that the confirmation email contains all the details such as amount, transaction ID, and items purchased
  4. Test the user experience by assessing the ease of navigation
  5. Test the security by verifying whether the data is encrypted
  6. Have real users test the process and give feedback

Step 5: Optimize for Search Engines

Search engine optimization is the process of enhancing a business website in search engine results so that users can find it. It entails implementing keyword research, on-page SEO, content marketing, and local SEO. 

The most essential on-page SEO to implement include title tags, meta description, headers, visual content, internal linking, keyword optimization, image optimization, site speed, and mobile responsiveness among others.

Alongside on-page SEO, there are technical SEO requirements like site speed optimization, mobile friendliness, XML site map, secure sockets layer, structured data markup, mobile usability, and crawl error monitoring.

To assess the effectiveness of your SEO strategies you need to track performance metrics such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, user engagement, mobile usability, conversion rate, backlink profile, click-through rate, bounce rate, domain authority and page authority.

Step 6: Establish a Content Strategy

A content strategy is a plan that outlines the techniques, tactics, and outcomes that a business uses to create and distribute content effectively.

The core components of an effective content strategy include having clear goals and objectives, such as increasing traffic by 20% in the next 3 months.

It's important to determine the type of content, whether it's blog posts, videos, or infographics, and to understand your audience's needs and preferences.

You should develop topics and themes that align with your business goals and create a content calendar for consistent production and publishing.

Ensure you create and optimize content for both user experience and search engines, outline a promotion and distribution plan, and track the effectiveness of your content to make adjustments as needed.

Effective content planning involves defining content topics for the target audience, creating consistent content guidelines, and establishing a distribution plan.

It should incorporate SEO considerations and align with marketing objectives, while focusing on the needs of the customer persona.

Step 7: Market Your Website

Website marketing for business is the strategic promotion of a brand website to boost online visibility, drive relevant traffic and attract potential customers who are interested in a company's products or services.

The essential marketing channels to leverage include social media marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, affiliate marketing, referrals and word-of-mouth marketing, and PPC/paid search.

Marketing Platforms

These channels provide a comprehensive approach to reaching and engaging your target audience.

Key metrics to monitor during website marketing include traffic sources, website traffic, pages per session, and average session duration.

Additionally, tracking return on investment (ROI), click-through rate (CTR), social media engagement, click and email open rates, and mobile performance metrics is great for assessing performance and optimizing strategies.

Step 8: Monitor Your Website Performance

Website performance monitoring refers to tracking and analyzing various metrics of the website to assess how well a website is functioning. This process ensures that users enjoy a smooth experience with websites and web services.

The essential performance metrics to track include website traffic, conversion rate, top pages, average time spent on site, cost per conversion, returning visitors, exit rate, new visitor sessions, and average session duration.

These metrics provide insight into user behavior and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

The common tools for effectively tracking website performance are Google PageSpeed, Insights (PSI), WebPageTest, New Relic, Semrush, Ahrefs, Lighthouse, Sentry, Cloudflare, GTmetrix, and Pingdom.

Implementing website monitoring effectively involves knowing your objective, picking the right tools, configuring the tools, configuring alerts, analyzing data, optimizing data, documenting your findings, and regularly reviewing and updating your monitoring strategy.

Step 9: Enhance Mobile Responsiveness

Mobile responsiveness is the ability of a website to adapt its layout to the screen size and orientation of the device being used, especially smartphones and tablets.

The most essential mobile responsiveness elements include flexible grids, flexible images, minimalist design, viewpoint meta tag, media queries, and accessible content.

The main technical requirements for implementing mobile responsiveness include using CSS styles with percentage-based widths to create a flexible layout, and ensuring a proper HTML structure with semantic elements and a viewport meta tag for accessibility and SEO.

Apply JavaScript enhancements to support mobile-friendly navigation and accessibility considerations to ensure interactive elements are keyboard-accessible.

On the back-end, consider adaptive serving for older browsers without negatively impacting SEO.

Focus on performance optimization by minimizing HTTP requests, and use debugging and testing tools like responsive design mode and services like BrowserStack to test responsiveness across various devices and screen sizes.

Testing and validating mobile responsiveness is crucial to ensure that the website delivers a seamless experience across various devices.

First, it's best to identify the key devices and browsers to test. Next, you need to use online testing tools such as BrowserStack or Screenfly to test performance, page speed, accessibility, and user experience among others. You can then create a test report by documenting issues, and observations for future reference.

Step 10: Add Social Media Integration

Social media integration refers to linking social media accounts with a business's website to create a cohesive brand experience for users.

The essential integration components of social media include social media feeds, social media sharing buttons, follow buttons, social media analytics, hashtag integration, social media advertising links, call to action integration, and mobile responsiveness.

These components ensure a seamless connection between your website and social media platforms.

To implement social media integration, you need to define what you intend to achieve and select the right platforms. It's also important to choose a sharing button that matches the website design and embeds the feeds.

To track traffic, use UTM parameters shared on social media. It's best to ensure that each social media platform complies with the policies regarding API.

The key performance tracking elements to consider include followers growth, engagement metrics, conversion metrics, click-through rates, and content performance.

Step 11: Enable Website Security Features

Website security features are the elements used to safeguard data and protect the website against any malicious attacks.

The most essential commercial website security features include user authentication, SSL certificate, backup system, firewall, malware scanner, and DDoS protection.

To implement website security features, it's important to keep your software updated by regularly updating your content management system, plugins, and themes to close security gaps. Implement strong passwords for all accounts to guard against brute-force attacks. Regularly scan the website for vulnerabilities to detect threats in real-time.

Enable a web application firewall to block malicious traffic, SQL injections, and other web-based threats.

Perform regular backups to restore your website if a security breach occurs. Lastly, encrypt your data to secure information transmitted between your site and users' browsers.

It's important to regularly make security updates to address any vulnerabilities on the websites that hackers exploit.

By implementing the latest updates, you are protecting your business website from any potential threats.

Updates also help close any security gaps and minimize chances of cyber attacks. More so, regular updates patch up any vulnerabilities, making it more difficult for attackers to penetrate your website.

Step 12: Utilize Live Chat For Instant Support

Live chat is a real-time messaging tool that allows businesses to communicate with visitors on their websites in real time.

Live chat enhances customer satisfaction by leading to better overall experiences. It also makes it easier to offer customers real conversational experiences.

According to NICE’s 2022 Digital-First Customer Experience Report, 53% of customers prefer engaging with companies using chat compared to other digital methods.

The main components of an effective live chat system include real-time communication, user-friendly interface, transcripts and chat history, and integration with other tools. Others are analytics and reporting, feedback mechanisms, and security features.

The best practices for implementing live chat include strategically placing the live chat option at the bottom right corner, ensuring responsive service with quick and accurate replies, and using automation to reduce wait times and personalize interactions.

It's important to take the first step by proactively asking visitors if they need help, and to ask for feedback after closing conversations.

Avoid multitasking by not handling too many chats at once, and always communicate effectively by reading messages carefully and responding clearly.

Step 13: Implement Website Accessibility Features

Website accessibility is the practice of creating websites for all users regardless of their impairment or disability. The key website accessibility guidelines to follow include:

  • Perceivable: Visitors must understand and be aware of the content you present on your website. The goal is to make the website content as perceivable as possible.
  • Operable: An operable website ensures all features and functionality are accessible without any interruption. It’s best to ditch excess functionality that impedes users with disabilities and limitations.
  • Understandable: An accessible website uses clear language and provides explanations for any complex concepts.
  • Robust: The website should be easily interpreted by people with various assistive technologies, such as screen readers.

To implement specific accessibility features, you need to:

  • Offer text alternatives: Offer text alternatives for images, videos, and audio to allow users with blindness or low vision to understand the content.
  • Structure content in an adaptable way: Use proper headings, bold texts, and ordered and unordered list elements to convey information.
  • Make the content easy to see and hear: Utilize color contrast to allow everyone including those with a range of disabilities to read the content.
  • Ensure keyboard accessibility: Ensure all interactive elements are navigable via the keyboard.
  • Provide ample time for engagement: Let users read, watch and engage with the content on your site without time constraints. If a time-out is necessary, warn users before time expires.
  • Avoid blinking or flashing content: Rapidly flashing content can be distracting, contributing to an inaccessible web experience, so avoid it.
  • Provide navigation: Include a clear page title, keyboard focus indicator, and proper headings to signal to users where they are on your site.
  • Make the text readable: Make your writing clear and concise for visitors with cognitive disabilities or those who are not native speakers of your website’s primary language.
  • Structure the pages well: Intuitively place your navigational links and pages and keep the navigation above the fold, especially in the page's header.
  • Write useful error messages: Provide a clear description of the error to help visitors correct a mistake.

How Much Does Web Development Cost in the UK?

A website development cost in the UK ranges from £1,500 for a basic site to over £15,000 for a custom, enterprise-level platform. 

The cost varies widely depending on several factors including the complexity of the website being built, the complexity of the project, and the expertise of the developers. 

The cost breakdown of web development in the UK is given in the table below:

Website Type Cost Range
Basic Website £1,000 to £5,000
Small Business Websites £5,000 to £15,000
Ecommerce Websites £10,000 to £50,000+
Custom Web Applications £6,000 to £12,000+

How to Choose the Right Web Developer for Business Website Development?

To choose the right web developer for business website development, you need to consider the following factors;

  • Identify your goal: Identify your goal and determine what you want your users to do. This also involves determining your target audience, business needs, and the functionality and features you require for your website.
  • Check the developer’s portfolio: Check the expertise, and ability of the developer to create high-quality websites. Look for websites that are similar in functionality to know what you want for your website.
  • Evaluate the developer’s technology stack: Check if the developer has expertise in the latest web development technologies and tools. They should also have a comprehensive understanding of the various programming languages, and databases.
  • Assess the developer’s support system: Consider the communication, responsiveness, and availability of the web developer.
  • Consider the company’s pricing terms: Consider the pricing and contract terms of the company and choose a company with transparent pricing and a clear scope of work.

How To Create a Business Website With WordPress?

To create a business website with wordpress, you need to;

  • Set up your account: Pick the relevant category for the type of website you intend to create and select an industry then fill in the relevant details. 
  • Choose a style for your site: Choose the theme and the style to provide the design and layout for your site by adding content.
  • Choose a domain name: Get a free domain with a WordPress.com extension or buy a custom domain directly from WordPress.com.
  • Select a WordPress.com plan: Choose either a personal to eCommerce plan based on what best meets your business needs.
  • Build your site: Create pages and posts and add different media. Also add content for your potential customers.
  • Include headings and keywords: Include the headings and keywords to determine the relevance of your site’s content.

How To Create a Business Website With Wix?

To create a website with Wix you need to follow the following steps;

  • Know your goals: Start by clearly defining your goals and what you intend to achieve with your website so you can make informed decisions.
  • Define your target audience: Determine your audience demographics, such as age, gender, location, and income level so you can tailor your content based on their preferences.
  • Research well: Research your competitors' sites to get inspiration.
  • Set up your business dashboard: Create your Wix account and set up your business dashboard.
  • Create the website: When your dashboard is all set up, create the website.
  • Customize the website: Go to the Wix Editor to customize all aspects of your site including the text, media, and layout among others.
  • Publish the website: Once you’re satisfied with the website click the publish button.
  • Optimize the website: Finally, optimize the website to ensure it appears in the relevant search engines.

How To Build a Business Directory Website?

To build a business directory website you need to follow these steps;

  • Choose the type of directory: Choose the type of business directory you intend to build. The main types of business directories are local directories,industry directories, B2B directories, review directories, industry specific directories among others.
  • Get a domain and hosting: Buy a domain and hosting from popular providers like Google Domains, or any other provider you prefer.
  • Install WordPress: Install WordPress and activate the WordPress theme.
  • Install and Activate free WordPress plugin: Install a free WordPress directory plugin. There are several WordPress directory plugins like Directorist, Business Directory Plugin, and GeoDirectory you can install.
  • Create categories, tags and locations: This is to help your website visitors to perform their search to get the most relevant listing.
  • Add a free payment gateway: To monetize your directory, you’ll need to set up a payment gateway to receive payments.
  • Optimize and publish content: Create high-quality content to attract targeted customers.

How Do I Create a B2B Business Website?

To create a B2B business website, you need to;

  • Know Your Audience: Understand your target audience’s demographics, needs, and preferences to allow you create a more engaging and relevant user experience.
  • Determine Your Goals: Know your business objectives and goals so you can create a website that aligns with them. Without a clear goal in mind, you’ll create a website that doesn’t produce the outcomes you want.
  • Competitor Sites: Research your competitors' sites to get crucial insights into industry standards, user expectations, and areas of opportunity. Doing this will also help you identify best practices, weaknesses to avoid, and gaps in the market.
  • Craft a Strategy: Develop a content strategy that educates and engages the leads. Make sure your website has intuitive navigation, lead generation and conversion tactics such as calls to action.
  • Create a Structure for Your Website: Creating a professional website structure that establishes the framework for user navigation and content organization. Include pages such as the homepage, about us page, products and services page, blog page contact us page among others.
  • Create Web Content: Create clear and jargon free content by applying an educational approach. Also include a call for action to guide visitors.
  • Monitor and Adjust as Necessary: Monitor your website to ensure it remains functional. This will help you identify and address technical issues, such as broken links or slow loading times.

Can You Create a Business Website For Free?

Yes, you can create a business website for free using both Wix and WordPress which are free website builders. According to an article published on business.org, you can create a free business website on platforms such as Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and WordPress.com.

However, to build a small business website, you'll need to buy the domain name and web hosting to make your website professional. A domain name costs around £13.90 per year and web hosting around £8.34 per month.

What Are The Steps in Web Development?

The main steps in web development process include;

  • Step 1: Information gathering: First you need to gather information such as your purpose, main goals, and target audience. It’s also important to know about your ideal customer, including their interest, age and gender. It also involves creating a sitemap that lists all the topics and sub-topics of your website. By creating a site map, you’ll visualize the website and know how your users can move from one page to the next.
  • Step 2: Use the Right Technology: Utilize modern technology frameworks, coding environment, and new libraries. According to Marek Kirejczyk, VP of Engineering at DaftCode, using these will save you a lot of time. You need to Install a reputable PHP framework such as Symfony, Laravel, Symfony, Zend Framework, PHP-MVC among others. Also, use CSS libraries like Normalize.css and Pure.css, as well as grid frameworks like Flexible Grid System. More so, obtain jQuery and JavaScript and jQuery plugins.
  • Step 3: Designing: Create a visually appealing and user-friendly interface that demonstrates the website's uniqueness and contributes to a positive user experience. The best design should focus on seamless navigation and user interactions to create a smooth journey.
  • Step 4: Development: Define the technologies, functionality, and integrations, and other technical concerns. This stage involves both front-end and back-end development to turn designs into a functional website. Front end is where animations and effects are added to HTML pages. JavaScript is also used to add interactivity, such as sliders and animations. Backend is used to create portions of the website that users cannot access. It involves Server-side programming using languages such as Python, PHP, and Node.js.
  • Step 5: Testing: Testing is to ensure that the website is fully functional and works well across all devices. The main testing methods include functional testing, user testing and performance testing that confirms the website’s speed and ability to handle traffic.
  • Step 6: Deployment or Launching: Deployment is where the website is launched on a live server to confirm whether it’s accessible to users. It involves web hosting, domain connection, CMS integration and content updates. During this phase, make sure the website is relevant and aligned with user needs.
Posted In:
  • Web Development
  • Oliver-Author
    Oliver Baker
    Co-Founder

    Oliver Baker is a co-founder of Intelivita, a leading Web and Mobile App Development Company based in Leeds, UK. Oliver has been at the forefront of the business, expanding it globally and into new technologies including iOS and Android, AR, VR and Mobile Game applications. Oliver excels in Project Management, Leadership, Quality Assurance and Problem Solving and has qualifications with Prince2 and APM. He aims to develop his skills further through a shared interest with other leaders in the Software Markets and the Clients of Intelivita.

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