How to create a website for your business without the help of specialists: complete step by step
Creating a website is not something complicated or too expensive. And, in this text, we are going to teach you how to design one yourself, from scratch!
Many people know the importance of placing their brand on the digital stage, in the end, the Internet is one of the first places someone uses to look for solutions to a problem.
However, most entrepreneurs face difficulty with their consequent question: can I create a website for my business without help?
There are few who know to program and those who want to have a website generally hire developers to carry out this task. Of course, this is a good idea, especially if you have the conditions to invest in this type of service.
However, what happens is that hiring a developer can be more expensive than you expected and, therefore, you may think about abandoning the idea of designing your own website. But, what many do not know, is that it is possible to do it on your own, even without having much knowledge of programming. And that is what we are going to talk about today.
Discover, in this post, how to create a website and start investing time in this strategy for your business.
Table of Contents
What is the difference between a website and a blog?
This is a good question. It is very common for people to use a website, a blog and even ecommerce as synonyms, have you noticed? However, when you are thinking of starting a digital business, knowing which of them you need to create is essential.
What is a web page?
The web page of a company or professional is a digital address that presents the visitor with its services, differential elements, set of products, contact forms and other information.
It can be organized by pages, which can appear as tabs in the website layout. In them, you can place items such as:
- home page, where there will be prominent elements and access paths to the others;
“Who we are” or “Professional CV”, which describes the company, or the professional and their training; - products or services, showing the set of items that can be purchased with brief descriptions;
- units of the store or franchise,
Location; - how to buy, in case it is not an ecommerce;
- contact information.
This information guarantees that the visitor knows the business or the professional and knows how they can be hired. They are static data, that is, they do not require frequent updating.
In the case of products, the description shows their characteristics, but, as it is not a virtual store, the purchase will not be finalized in that environment.
Except for the contact page, all the others are not made to stimulate an interaction on the web page, but serve to lead the visitor to another point of sale or start a relationship with the professional.
What is a blog?
Blogs, on the other hand, function as a place for regular, up-to-date postings on a topic. They can even be organized by pages, if the niche allows it.
A blog about gastronomy, for example, can have pages that organize recipes, tips from the chef, events held, digital products for sale, etc.
This digital management model requires commitment and interaction. Therefore, it is necessary to create optimized posts with content marketing strategies to achieve higher positions in Google search and thus attract organic visits, without a payment boost.
A good tip is to read the bloggers bible, which brings the best practices and strategies to manage blogs.
Blogs are also excellent for strengthening the authority of an ecommerce or professional, showing that they are up to date on the subject and that their information is relevant and applicable.
So, we can say that the main differences between the two are in their purposes and type of management: the website focuses on the description of the business, like a business card, and the blog on the relationship with the public to promote itself and generate opportunities and more sales.
Why does your business need to have a website?
Before teaching you the step by step to create a website, we need to explain why this is a good strategy for all types of entrepreneurship, whether online or physical.
You must have already realized that it is increasingly common to search for solutions to problems and resolve doubts on the Internet.
When it comes to buying a product or hiring a service, it’s no different: people search search engines like Google and YouTube for solutions to the purchases they want to make.
For example:
If someone wants to buy a sofa, it is very likely that, before going out to look for that product in a physical store, they will do an Internet search to find out the prices and types of sofas that they will be able to buy.
Having a website is a great way to reach potential customers and even maintain a relationship with your customers. This happens because you can make your website a showcase for people to get to know your products/services and, mainly, so that they understand your brand, your values as a company and know exactly what you have to offer.
What types of web pages exist and how to choose one?
Knowing the types of web pages is very important, and your marketing strategy should start from here. For this reason, we present each one point by point, so that you can choose with all of the law which is the best for your business.
1. E-commerce or online store (virtual)
E-commerce is also known as an online or virtual store, because its main objective is the sale of products or services, without the need for physical premises. Therefore, the customer must find accurate descriptions of products and prices on your website.
For your online store to fulfill its role and sell, it is essential that you have a payment page, or checkout, in which the user can finalize the purchase of the selected items. In short: an online store facilitates the direct sale of your product.
These types of websites are a good option for clothing stores and delivery services. However, keep in mind that designing an e-commerce website is synonymous with continuous updates, which require keeping an inventory to communicate out-of-stock products and those that have just arrived.
2. Institutional website
An institutional website is the business card of your business in the digital world and one of the pillars of Institutional Marketing. Its objective is to show all the relevant information about the company in a clear way, such as the mission, vision and contact information , so that those who visit it can choose the best way to communicate with you.
These types of web pages are essential for any business, even more so for those with a defined audience.
Applying some marketing strategies is key to boosting your institutional website. For example, you can opt for content marketing when developing a corporate blog. That way, you offer useful content to the visitor without talking directly about your product or service.
3. Service web
A mini-website is a site made up of one or a few pages, the purpose of which is to communicate directly and objectively with whoever accesses it, but with a simpler approach. The mini-site is widely used as an extension of the main web page of a business, helping to promote a certain product.
In this way, visitors come into contact with the product and are redirected to the purchase page. It should be clarified that the mini-site is different from a landing page, which we will explain below.
In general, the mini-site is intended to sell something concise and concrete. The landing page, or landing page, focuses on capturing potential customers. That said, it’s important to think carefully when choosing the ideal type of page for your business proposal.
4. Landing Page
The landing page is an external page to the main site. It is used within the content marketing strategy and aims at conversion. For example, you can offer an ebook in exchange for user information, such as email, phone and other data.
In this way, everyone wins: the user receives quality and free content and your business generates a lead, or potential customer. For this to work, you need to add a CTA (call to action) button so that the user is redirected to the conversion.
5. Hotsite
A hotsite is very similar to the destination page or landing page, but it is used seasonally, on specific and indicated dates. For example, you can create a hotsite at Christmas time, exclusively to give more prominence to this campaign. You also have the option to design a website when you launch a new product.
6. Blog
Blogs are like a virtual magazine in which you publish content of interest to your target audience. It is part of the content marketing strategy and presents goals such as:
- become a benchmark in the market;
- educate the market about a product or service;
- increase traffic and recognition of your brand;
- generate evergreen materials;
generate sales leads; - and more.
For these reasons, creating a blog is a good option to get closer to your audience.
7. Dynamic website
A dynamic web page is an institutional website, but more complex. The difference is in the use of more advanced programming features that provide better access with a full user experience.
This type of page is a good option for companies of different sizes, as it offers excellent results both for those with a greater investment capacity and for those with limited resources.
Is it possible to create a web page without help?
As we mentioned before, you can create your own website without the help of experts such as programmers or web designers.
Actually, we all know that if you have some knowledge of programming, you will be able to make your website more easily and, mainly, with more resources.
However, if you do not have much knowledge on the subject, you can follow the step by step that we will show you in the next topics.
It is important to remember that when we talk about something related to programming language, that is, coding standards, such as JavaScript, it will always be difficult for someone who is just starting out and knows nothing about the subject.
But, if your goal is to get your website up and running just to start, you can create something much simpler, and when you feel the need to improve, you can invest and hire someone to make some modifications, or study more about programming to do it on your own.
We want to make it very clear that we are not going to teach you how to design a web page with various resources and specific plugins, because our goal is for you to have a website that works as another tool to promote your products and services.
Step by step to create a web page
If you have come this far, you have probably realized that having a website is essential to increase the reach of your business.
From now on, we will show you the practical part and we will help you with a step by step so that you can create your website without help.
There are various tools available on the internet, paid and free, that allow you to create one.
What you need to do is analyze your type of business and then choose a website builder that supports what you will put into it.
In this post, we are going to show you how to create a web page hiring a hosting service and registering your domain, which is the best way to generate authority in your area of action.
Shall we start?
1. Register your domain
To register a domain, search for a service in your country, such as domains.es, or international services such as GoDaddy to be able to choose the name of your website.
This stage is very important, because when you buy a domain, you prevent other people from using the same name as you.
For that, this type of page has a search engine where you can enter the name of the domain you want to register to check if it is available.
In domains.es, for example, all you have to do is click on the Search tab and register your domain, type the desired domain in the space indicated and click on Search to be sure that the name you have chosen has not yet been used.
In case the name you have chosen has not been used yet, register it by filling in the following fields with your personal information to purchase the domain.
2. Hire a hosting service
The hosting service is what will get your website up and running.
There are many options on the market, both free and paid. However, the big problem with choosing a free hosting service is that it comes with a lot of restrictions and can be unstable, and this can cause your website to go down.
For paid services, you have several other options, such as Hostinger and InMotion Hosting , which have plans starting at €3.29 and $6.99 per month, respectively. The important thing is to research and choose the one that is best for you.
3. Choose a website builder
After you have your domain and a good hosting service, the next step is to build your website.
Again, there are several options for you, including the contracted hosting services’ own website builders.
To decide which one is the best, check if it is possible to customize the website, choose a template related to your business and include videos and images to leave the website with your identity.
The good side of these builders is that most of them are very self-explanatory, so it is easy to create a web page with the help of these tools.
But, if you don’t have any startup capital to build your website, there is another way to do it: through free website builders that include hosting.
However, as we said before, the problem with this type of website is that you will not have an exclusive domain for your brand, which can harm the positioning of your website in search engines.
We chose Google Sites, which offers integration with online stores, Google Maps, as well as being mobile friendly, for example. But you can choose another tool, if you prefer.
10 tips to grow your website
Well, now you have a website! Congratulations! Now is the time to place it ahead of your competition, but, mainly, to make it very attractive to your target audience. Let’s look at best practices and strategies to achieve this.
1. Do performance-based management
Don’t worry, it’s not very complex. You can track traffic statistics on website building and management platforms. That is, it is possible to evaluate the performance of the content created, which pages are most visited, etc.
Consider this information and try to update your web page and create content for the pages evaluating which ones have the best performance. You can also do A/B tests to identify which formats, colors, images and texts attract your audience the most.
2. Create a blog
One of the pages of your website can be a blog, did you know that? Thus, you can alternate the two strategies and, at the same time that you promote your products or services, you also generate relationships, authority and business opportunities.
For that, of course, it is important that you pay attention to the content, the news and the opinions on the topics related to your product.
3. Make good use of keywords
Keywords are important for your potential customers to find your website when they use search engines. But not only that.
Search engines, such as Google, use robots to position and organize content in their users’ search results.
That is, the keywords must appear in the places where those robots look for the information to provide the answers to their users — such as the description of the web page and images, the titles or the meta description.
It is what we call Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or optimization for search mechanisms.
4. Use your social networks
Social networks are also excellent tools to attract new customers and cannot be missing from your strategy.
Choose the ones that are most compatible with your market, those that your target audience prefers and that offer more tools to help spread your content.
In most of them, it is possible to insert the address of your website in the profile, for example.
5. Choose an attractive layout
If you want to publicize your product, choose a layout that values images and highlights them. If the idea is to present success stories of your online courses, for example, evaluate a format that allows you to alternate between text and image.
There are various layouts freely available on those platforms. Some of them even suggest what type of business each one is most compatible with. In this way, knowing the audience you want to reach and the way you are going to interact in the virtual environment, you will make better decisions.
6. Choose the most appropriate type of page
Now that you know the types of pages and their objectives, you must define which one is the most suitable for your brand or product, right?
With so many options, it can be difficult to choose, but we recommend that you focus on the one that corresponds to the strategies outlined by your business.
Also, keep in mind that customer experience should be one of the pillars of your strategy. Therefore, choose a type of website capable of offering an intuitive and dynamic experience for users.
7. Track website performance with Google Analytics
Creating a website on your own cannot be based exclusively on choosing the one that best suits your brand. You must rely on data and statistics to understand its performance.
Therefore, a good option is to link your page to Google Analytics. At first, it may seem cumbersome, but the tool deserves to be studied and used, for which we recommend that you consult the different guides and tutorials available on the Internet.
And if you want to learn all the tricks about how it works, don’t hesitate and access our article on Google Analytics.
8. Study your segment
Before creating a website, think about the niche performance you want to participate in. This decision will guide your business to the type of site that gives you opportunity for growth.
Therefore, when studying your segment, you will need to assess the market to find out what people are looking for. A good tool to do this is Google Trends.
Studying and monitoring the competition is also a fantastic option, as you can be inspired by the ideas of those who are market leaders. In other words, by evaluating the content and information published, applying it in your favor, your site will have more chances to boost its conversions.
But remember, no copying. The theme here is to be inspired and adapt while remaining original.
9. Bet on SEO
In order for you to position yourself at the top of Google searches, you must invest in SEO, or what is the same, in optimization for search engines. This is one of the best practices to optimize your site so that search engines understand the quality of your business by showing it among the first results.
In general, it requires a lot of dedication, since the competition of any segment is high today and positioning yourself on the first page of Google is not something that can be achieved overnight. However, you need to build optimization focused on user experience, not search engines.
Naturally, the results will be better and the tendency will be to receive more traffic.
10. Create a responsive website
It is important to have a responsive website, capable of adapting the display in different browsers and screen sizes, such as cell phones (smartphones) and tablets. The importance of this is related to the large number of people who access the internet through these devices.
Otherwise, your site may lose a lot of traffic and drop from the top positions in search engines like Google.
What is UX and how can it improve your website?
With the advice and the step by step that we present to you, you will be able to publish your website on the Internet and promote your products and services, something very good that can generate more business.
But, differentiating yourself from the competition is also very important, and the way is to make your website more friendly for those who are browsing. That easy? Yes, and the user experience (UX, acronym for ” user experience “) explains why.
Imagine, for example, that you want to buy a children’s blouse at a department store in the mall.
As you enter the store, an arrow indicates that children’s items are on the left, and you head there. At the end of the corridor, however, you realize that there are two escalators and wonder if they take you to the same place.
You go down and only later find out that you chose the wrong ladder. So, you need to leave the store, go up to the other floor of the mall and start all over again. And, when you finally arrive, you realize that the clothes are not separated by age, and that not all the clothes have a price, among other problems.
To complete this confusing experience, at the register, when paying, after having lost long hours in that process, you discover that the store only accepts cash and you only have a credit card. It’s frustrating, isn’t it?
Incredible as it may seem, some web pages are also confusing to their visitors. The difference is that, for those who access, there is no difficulty in closing the window and entering the competitor’s website.
Do you realize the importance of UX for websites? UX considers what is important to the user and makes it easy for them to access information.
That is, if you want to know how to get to a physical store, for example, the web page must offer not only the address, but also a Google Maps link that takes you directly from your current location and according to the type of transport you want to use.
For a web page that discloses information products, for example, the description of the articles may contain the main questions that visitors usually ask.
Does the course offer a certificate? How many hours of content is it? Is the topic for beginners or for people with advanced knowledge?
Such information shortens the sales process and ensures that the website visitor gets to complete their search without having to send an email to the administrator and wait for the information. In addition, many users do not even take the trouble. They go. Spot.
If you want to invest in a web page with a good UX, do not forget that most users access content through smartphones. In other words, your digital address must be responsive and adapt to different screen sizes. Other tips are:
- think of all the relevant information to present on the initial screen of the website. It will grab the attention of visitors and make them want to know more;
- consider the more traditional way people visit a web page and try to organize the information so they don’t have to work searching;
- use applications from platforms that facilitate the search, such as Google Maps.
How to apply this strategy in your business?
And… Have you already realized that it is not so difficult to create a web page without help? You do not need to hire a specialist to develop it, after all, the platforms already offer models that are easy to apply.
Also, designing simple solutions that can be executed by any user and ensure a good experience was also another point that we addressed, right?
In other words, if you invest in this project and assume the creation of your own web page, you will live the user experience in practice. Think about the concepts we present here when you are browsing the platform!
As we also saw, if it makes sense for your project, you can add a blog to your website, or create one independently. Now that you know how to design a website, you only need to understand the second stage.
To help you, we have prepared a complete content explaining how to create a blog. Do not miss it!
