Things required to take your business online are as follow:-
- web Hosting
- Domain Name
- Preferred technology in which you want to create a website for your online business.
Now there different web hosting according to your budget and plans. like how many domains you want, so in some cases one can get free domains based on hosting plans available.
So to decide what kind of website is good for our business, let me tell you, there are two types of website
- Static website
- Dynamic website
- a static website is a fixed information site, in which there is the same information for every visitor.
- Dynamic website which has user log in, so here content is different. for example Netflix
next step for a creative and good looking website is Theme. so there are different themes available as per user business requirement, one can go with a paid theme or free theme available online. but again selecting the right theme is also very important as it can save more time in coding and customization.
Technology:- if the user doesn’t have some complex requirements then one can go with WordPress which is much user friendly and easily editable later without any technical knowledge. one can also go with PHP, ASP.Net etc. which I will talk later.
there are also different kinds of websites as per the user’s business like e-commerce sites to buy and sell products online.
In e-commerce site, there will be product details listed along with pricing , manufacturer’s details. It will also have user login where one can create an account to select, buy the product, or save it to buy later called wish list, final step is to pay for it either online or will have the option to pay cash on delivery. of-course users can see different payment method’s. and with an increase in technology users can also track their products, like shipping, track status, etc.
after all this, you will need to do proper SEO of your business so that whenever anyone searches for a similar business like your’s then your website URL comes to the first page of google.
A normal business website usually needs the following pages like Homepage, About us page, i:e; describes about their business story, services, contact page.
there are 2 sides of any website, frontend, and backend. a frontend is what users see on the website and the backend is something that performs all the action at the admin side. select a proper domain name that is unique and clearly describe your business. A logo is also equally important, as gives a clear message to a user visiting your site.
A good design is also the main factor to build engagement with a customer for a long time. like it should not be hard to find anything into your site, for example, there are so many items listed in your website but customers time is limited, so there should be a search bar and a category list in your site so that anyone can easily find items they are looking by just going through categories.
By having a website is, you are creating an online presence for your business for those customers who can not reach your shop or office, so now they can buy your product online. before having an online presence, only offline customers can buy your products or services. A good site is completed when you have nice content, beautiful design, option to interact with customers to know their feedback about the services or products.
It is also important that your site should be responsive to all devices and browsers. devices like tablets, desktops, mobile. because you never know what devices and operating systems your customers are having, as every system has different screen resolution, so your site should fit to all screensize.
Also when you see other website URLs, it always starts with https which means that your site is secure, so you should make sure that you have a safety and security certificate on your site so that every information of your website and customers deal with you through this site is safe. for this, there are some plugins available that one can install.
so now by following all these steps, we have created our business website but now one other thing which I find very useful is website loading speed. because when so many customers visit the website altogether, so there is a chance for slow loading speed, it means website takes more time to open a particular page and it could be annoying for some customer which might result in bad customer feedback, so it’s very important to check this.
we should also check that we have proper space in our server for database and other information that the site is having or collecting. this should be done while selecting website hosting plans.
and also to remember that there is a google map installed in your site which shows the address location of your office so that anyone who wants to visit your shop or office can reach out to you.
Customer Engagement: Every business should have a direct customer engagement option to your website so that they can talk to directly and it builds trust among them. especially if you are into e-commerce business then it becomes very important to have either a chat box system or email support for customer inquiry or anything related to your services or products. this will increase trust among them and will help you in the long run.
the last thing that every website and online business should have is social media integration linked so that you generate traffic through different platforms via these channels also.