Latest posts by Christopher Jan Benitez (see all)
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Creating a website for your business may seem unnecessary especially when you’re just starting out. However, because a website can help you build better branding and increase sales of your products and services – among other benefits – it will be wise for you to expand your business to the online world. More importantly, less than half of small businesses have a website.
By building a beautiful business website now, you not only gain an edge over your competitors who don’t have one, but also unleash your business to a wider audience!
Below are steps that you should take to achieve and clean and easy-to-use website that best represents your business without making a dent in your pocket.
Purchasing a domain
Cost: $9.99/year
Normally, you should go with your business name as your domain name to maintain consistent branding. From here, I would suggest that you purchase your top-level domain at NameCheap as they are known for their fast and reliable service.
Normally, you would look for available domains under the .com extension since this is the most common and identifiable among all extensions. However, if your brand name has been taken for .com, look into other alternatives (net, .org, .biz, etc.) and find which one is the most convenient for you.
Purchase a hosting
Cost: FREE to $3.96/month
A web hosting is your virtual space where you will place your website files. This is important if you want to create a robust and flexible website that suits your needs.
Two of the most popular paid web hosting services are HostGator and Bluehost – you can’t go wrong with choosing either given their excellent track records. However, an up-and-coming web hosting service that offers FREE and UNLIMITED web space where you can set up your website is Hostt.
Registering for your hosting here will cut down on the monthly payments from other paid services while enjoying unlimited hosting space! However, in order to enjoy their free hosting, you need to register your domain from them as well. If you have existing domains that you registered from other sites, you can transfer them to Hostt to receive your free hosting space.
If you signed up with HostGator or BlueHost, you should enter the name servers of your hosting name and enter it onto the registrar’s settings of your purchased domain. For more information on how to do this correctly, read “How to Point a Domain Name to Your Website (Or What to Do After Buying Your Domain Name).”
Choosing a website platform
Cost: FREE
There are lot of website platforms, also known as CMS (content management system), to choose from that offer unique features for building and publishing your website. However, cutting through the choices, I would strongly suggest that you use WordPress.org as your platform.
This CMS arguably offers the most flexibility for your website with a dashboard that’s easy to navigate and a host of free and paid plugins to choose from. From e-commerce to corporate, WordPress can do it for your site. More importantly, this platform is free for download and has a great community where you can ask for help if you encounter problems using it.
Download the files here and read this comprehensive 5-minute guide on how to install WordPress on your hosting and domain using Windows. You can also refer to the “Point And Click To Create A WordPress Website” post for additional pointers.
Choosing a theme
Cost: as low as $3
Your WordPress theme will determine how you website will appear. Upon accessing your WordPress dashboard, you have a couple of themes that you can activate for your site. However, the choices and support for the available free themes will be limited. This will make it difficult for you to come up with right colors and feel for your business website.
With ThemeForest, you will get to choose from premium WordPress themes at affordable prices. Most of the themes available here do not require any technical knowledge to set up and customize so you can tweak the theme to the design based on your branding.
Choosing plugins
As mentioned earlier, what separates WordPress from other CMSs is the wealth of helpful plugins to supercharge your already beautiful business website. Depending on the needs of you business, you will have to find the right and best plugins out of the thousands of plugins available.
However, one plugin I would strongly suggest that you download is Jetpack. It has 33 features (and growing) that you can use to make your business website even more beautiful. For instance, the Photon feature will process images on your site from the cloud for faster loading time. Also, activating the Mobile Theme feature will optimize your website for mobile or smartphone viewing.
For more WordPress plugins to download for your business website, read this post from Small Biz Trends.
How about you, dear reader – are these any ways that missed in making an inexpensive beautiful business website? Share your thoughts by commenting below!
