Small businesses are increasingly expanding themselves in online territories. Surely, there are some surprising reasons that encourage companies to take this big move.
Having a website increases your chances of survival in the most challenging times and boosts efficiency when you are about to set your footprints in the international market.
Around 71% of small businesses today have a website. It helps them showcase their professional credibility.
Nearly half of Google searches are related to local businesses, and it’s no surprise that the future sees more opportunities flourishing in websites for small businesses.
If such interesting facts have also rolled your eyes around creating a website, let’s help you out. In the next 9 steps, we will learn how someone can create a website from scratch in no time. Take a look –
9 Steps to Build a Professional-Looking Website From Scratch
Mentioned below are some of the simple steps to consider when you are about to launch your website for the first time.
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Start from domain selection
Start by choosing a domain from a reliable broker. However, this may sound like an easy-to-do thing. But the reality is, it is not!
If, unfortunately, you have encountered a wrong domain name, which has either been expired or penalized by Google, you will surely have no use of it in the future.
That’s why we recommend picking a domain that translates your brand better. It would be even much better if the domain name matches exactly to your brand name.
It will help you land on a unique domain that might haven’t been used by anyone before. Unfortunately, if you don’t find the desired domain, settle on a short form of your brand.
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Invest in a reliable hosting plan
It’s worthwhile to choose a trusted hosting service provider that serves a promising speed with maximum uptime. The respective server must be widespread, ensuring your website could access broad coverage and is visible to a worldwide audience.
However, the price for the hosting plans can vary significantly. But if you just want to build a portfolio website, you can land on basic plans with no issues.
As soon as you purchase a reliable hosting plan, link it with the domain name. Simply go to the Dashboard of your purchased domain. Search for Nameservers and replace the given values with the values provided by your Hosting Provider’s values.
Wait for the DNS propagation to get things done rightly.
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Real journey begins at CMS
CMS or content management systems are the infrastructure of your digital shop. In the future, you will be handling your website entirely on this platform and will be managing your workflows.
The most popular CMS is WordPress, thanks to its feature-rich abilities and ease of customization that makes it so valuable for website managers. It’s recommended to have your CMS set upright in your Hosting Dashboard as it would be easy to launch it from there.
Alternatively, you can link your existing WordPress account with the newly purchased domain name to get started.
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Have a professional looking theme
A professional-looking theme or template is an indispensable activity to do with your website. After all, you can’t let your website look dull or unprofessional.
It must carry a glimpse of your brand and product and should be a great impression-setter to the first viewer who lands on your website. As their one-time visit tends to become a recurring visit if your website’s appearance is appealing to their eyes.
Of course, without products or call-to-actions, it will be incredibly tough to expect results. Therefore, you can hire a web developer or designer who will suggest to you the best practice to adopt and try for your website’s appearance.
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Customize your website
The customization round begins as soon as your website’s theme is installed, ready to be browsed on Google. Customization can include a range of activities you will want to be done for your website.
This may cover deciding the site layout, adding essential plugins, adjusting the site’s features, fixing the colors, redirection, and so on.
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Build an introduction-ready site
Before you make your website productive and end up making a stupid mistake like many novice website launchers, it’s worth considering the introduction segments of your website.
Mainly when you are building a portfolio website, make sure that you have about us, privacy policy page, and terms and condition page appropriately set.
The ‘About us’ section must correctly detail your offerings, like what you do, how you do it, and why you do it. Similarly, having a privacy policy page is also an indication that your website is ready to be verified by Google.
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Start publishing content
Now that your website’s structure is up to date and ready to be shown, it’s time to start publishing content. Start publishing content and go consistent with the schedule.
Avoid making your website public at this point. Publishing quality content on your website must be your top priority. Add visuals, infographics, and textual information to your website.
You still have a point to be checked once your site is ready to be featured to the public on digital routes.
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Consider backing up and site protection
No one can imagine managing their site without backup or site-protection support. Backing up the site and content published on it provides you the assurance that your hard work will never go waste if the website or server encounters a malfunction in unfortunate situations.
Also, make sure your site is SSL encrypted. Secure Sockets Layer identifies a website as trusted and more secure hence viewers can also feel assured about their web activities on your site.
Moreover, if the maximum business is managed through your website, added security must be considered to ensure further protection.
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Get it indexed to track and progress.
In the end, index your site to the search console and let it rock the digital world with its content and functionalities. Simply log in to Search Console using the mail ID with which you have your domain name linked and hit the submit button.
Wait for a day or Google’s message to check your site’s verification and enter the console. Here you will find critical metrics around your site’s performance and issues that might have been detected by Google live on the searches.
Final Suggestions
Make sure you have a well-built site map with all pages, posts, and categories submitted and indexed. Any error in your site may stop your website from being visible to people on their browser. Stay updated with the SEO checklist and adopt a routine to publish content regularly.
