Starting your own business can be an exciting time, but it can also be extremely challenging. As you prepare to launch your new venture, one thing you’ll want to focus on is how to make your small business look as good as possible without spending too much money—because if you’re like most small business owners, you’re probably operating on very little capital in the beginning and won’t have much to spend on design or marketing efforts.
DIY saves you money
I’m assuming you have an idea for your business website, but not the money or time needed to build it. You might think that web development is simply too expensive for small businesses, but there are lots of ways for you to DIY (that is, Do It Yourself) parts of your website. Think about which parts of your website could be outsourced and then consider contracting out those parts. For example, if you need someone to design your logo and graphics, hire a freelancer who specializes in graphic design; they can do it cheaper than most designers because they aren’t investing in all those extra bells and whistles that come with hiring an entire team.
First, consider your customer persona before writing optimized content
SEO is one of the first things you should do before you publish your site. There are a number of key components that make up SEO. Include in-depth analysis and more details about these below for readers to review and optimize for SEO. Here’s how to optimize for SEO: When writing the content, think about keywords and phrases that people will use to find your site (for example, small business health insurance). In addition to using key phrases, try and provide value through your content. For example, let’s say you own an antique store but want to target home owners as well.
Next, generate your content and outline
Begin creating your DIY website by generating content (text mostly) and outlining your navigation. In order to design a successful DIY website, you must create content that helps your customer find exactly what they are looking for. If your business requires customers navigate through several pages of information before being able to fill out an online form, you have created too much content. This will likely result in customer frustration and ultimately fewer leads than you could have otherwise generated if you had spent time thinking about how your customers prefer to browse online. Your designer will need this content to fill your your website as they’re designing. Without it, you’ll have a blank design or be left with a lot of generic Loren Ipsum text.
Gather assets like pictures, logos and downloadable content
The next step is to gather all of your assets. Most designers work with a client to establish a logo, along with any templates or icons you’ll need for social media and websites. But if you have other assets (like pictures of your employees or products), don’t be afraid to include them. This is also a good time to add in any downloadable content you might have: guides, white papers, ebooks and so forth.
Pulling it all together
Now that you’ve gathered all your content it is time to turn it over, in an organized way, to your website designer. Expect to use an iterative process where you regularly review pages of the site with your designer. When you review your homepage, look at its individual components (title, content) and think about how they connect together – would any of these need to change when switching between pages? Also keep in mind that if you need additional pages or sections (i.e., an About Us page) it may be helpful to work those into the layout of your homepage as well. Using an iterative process will give you time to catch and fix any problems before launch so that everything is perfect right from day one!