How to Make a Professional Web Site for Your Business

Your new business is finally getting off the ground. But there’s one thing you need to keep in mind before you pop open the champagne. The business needs a professional website if it’s going to remain competitive in the digital age.

Wait, do you really need a website? The answer is yes if you care about things such as online legitimacy, a wide marketing channel, and traffic from search engine optimization. The fact of the matter is everyone can benefit from creating a professional website.

There’s just one problem: You don’t know anything about creating, hosting, or designing a site. It’s easier than you may think. Here’s everything you need to know about how to make a professional web site.

1. Brainstorm the Perfect Domain Name

Creating a professional website starts long before you make a purchase. You need to choose and purchase the domain name. That’s the actual address for your website.

Thankfully, professionalism and SEO practices come hand in hand. For the best results, choose an easy-to-read domain name without hyphens or other forms of peculiar spacing. It’s also in your best interest to purchase a .com domain unless your website will fulfil a specific niche that is better suited elsewhere, such as .org or .biz domains.

If possible, include relevant keywords in the domain and take care not to use slang. While domains with shortened words may come at a cheaper price, it’s not great for SEO as visitors will have a hard time navigating to your site.

Once you’ve settled on a few domain options, research their prices and competitors. Don’t choose domain names that are too close to competitors or tread on an existing trademark or copyright.

There’s a lot of information to break down here. But in short: Keep it simple.

2. Find a Website Hosting Provider

Once you’ve purchased your domain name, you need to find a company with the server resources to put it online. There are countless services in this field. The hard part isn’t finding one, but deciding which to choose.

To come to a decision, you should have a good grasp on the role of your website as well as your personal experience with content management systems.

For example, what sorts of services will exist on your website? Maybe you want an e-commerce shop and user accounts. Or for a simpler website, you may only be interested in a fantastic design and quality blog content.

These factors will help you decide if you need shared or dedicated hosting and give you some insight into the resources your website will require. Making a good website generally means you’ll choose a hosting provider with plenty of server resources. More resources mean better load times and more consistent service, which are both important as far as SEO is concerned.

As mentioned earlier, you’ll want to keep the content management system in mind. WordPress is the most popular website content system as you can get by with limited or no coding knowledge. But there are other options available, such as Squarespace, which is an all-in-one comprehensive choice with less versatility.

Different website hosting providers will have their own backend support for these systems, so it’s important to choose those which support the system of your choice.

3. Develop a Professional Design

You’ve launched your site through a provider of your choice. Now it’s time for the hard part: Figuring out the design.

The aesthetic of your website will vary based on expectations in your industry and your professional brand. That said, there are clearcut, simple website design decisions that benefit any website.

The most important rule is to embrace minimalism. Concise designs with plenty of whitespace add a splash of color without distracting visitors away from your content.

But website design isn’t just about the look. The navigation is important, too. Use a robust navigation bar to make it easy for visitors to get to the content they’re looking for.

There are too many design decisions for us to include here. Refer to this great article for more website tips.

4. Focus on Search Engine Optimization

Once the framework of your website is in place, you want users to actually visit it. That’s what search engine optimization is all about. With an overwhelming amount of SEO practices available, it’s easy to get confused.

That said, we can look at the basics of domain-based SEO. The first rule of thumb is to create unique content relevant to your target audience. This generally means composing blog content, videos, infographics, or a combination.

In addition to fostering better website traffic with great SEO, this content can make a professional website. It tells visitors that you’re informed, authoritative, and part of the wider industry-level conversation.

5. Think Mobile

More than half of all online traffic is mobile, whether through phones or tablets. What does this mean for you? Well, you’ll need to create an intuitive mobile website if you want to get the other half of the traffic you’re missing out on.

The best way to create a mobile version of your existing site varies based on your provider and CMS situation. But most content management software has mobile plugins that can point you in the right direction. You’ll still need to make plenty of your own changes to enhance usability.