If your Business has come this far without a website, you may be wondering: Do I really need a website for my business? What’s the benefit of having a website if my business is already successful?

The short answer is that there has never been a better or more important time to invest in a website for your business. A website offers a multitude of benefits for small businesses, and most of those benefits grow exponentially from year to year, just like the Internet.

Why does my business need a website?

Your business needs a website because it increases your online visibility, and brand recognition. Apart from that there are various reasons you should have a website.

Online presence

First, a website gives your business an online presence. As mentioned above, the vast majority of customers search for local businesses online. If you don’t share your information with search engines, your business won’t have an online presence.

A website can provide search engines the required information about your business, including your address, phone number, service areas, and hours of operation. If your business isn’t found on search engines, basically it is not available on the internet.

Customer Engagement

The second reason why your business needs a website is to create a customer loyalty channel. A good company website gives people the opportunity to interact with your company, such as: request a free estimate, schedule an appointment, send an email to your company, or simply look up their address and phone number. 

The faster customers get information about your business, and the more opportunities they have to interact with you, the more likely they are to get in touch with you.

Competitive advantage

If you want potential customers to find and use your business instead of your competition, your business needs a website. The more information you can provide about your products, services, and personality, the better you can differentiate your business from the competition in your community.

By using content that reflects your personality and business culture, your website can attract more traffic. The more someone knows about your company, the more likely they are going to buy your products.

Saves Time

Whether you’re exchanging emails, answering calls, or sending offers, communicating with potential customers takes time. Your website can save your time by providing answers to common customer questions and inquiries. What does that mean to you? You can spend your time doing more valuable things.

Here is how you can create your own website from Scratch by following the steps given below:

How can you build your own Website?

Getting connected is easiest than ever. There are now over 200 million websites, many of which were created by ordinary people like you and me.

Today, anyone can create a website regardless of their technical ability. We know it seems like a daunting task, but today there are tools that simplify the process.

There are two ways to create a website: using a website builder or using WordPress. There’s no doubt that website Builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly are the best way for newbies to create a website.

1. Choosing the right website builder for you

Website builders are very popular nowadays, A large number of people use website builders to create their website. Wix alone has more than 100 million subscribers, while Shopify recently surpassed 1.2 million. 

With so many options available in the market, you have to choose the one that suits your needs. You can look on this site for a brief overview of such services. For ecommerce websites you can use Shopify, while for business websites Wix and SquareSpace are more suitable.

Website builders mean that anyone can create a website regardless of their technical ability. In the early days of the internet, creating a website required a practical understanding of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and then came CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to make things even more confusing.

Website builders take care of the jargon and allow you to focus on design and content. Some do it through templates, others through drag-and-drop interfaces, which doesn’t make creating a website any more difficult than putting together a PowerPoint presentation.

2. Signing up for a plan that fits your needs and total budget.

Once you are done with choosing your website builder, it’s time to find your pricing plan. If you are looking for a simple website (for example, a portfolio website or a small business website), the standard plan will probably work just fine. If you need something a little more complex, check out the features that come with more expensive plans. When in doubt, get a cheap start and upgrade later.

Once you have chosen a website builder, you will need to sign up for a plan. Website builders usually have several plans. Different websites have different requirements, and the plans ensure that you don’t pay for things you don’t need.

A web developer can cost anywhere from $300 to $1000 for template customization alone, and a completely custom website built from scratch often comes in the thousands. When you create your own website with a builder, you can have a fully functional website which is less than the price of a meal.

3. Choosing a unique and relevant Domain name

A domain name is the unique address of your site. You need to choose one for your website, which can be easily done through your website builder (you will be prompted to do so when you sign up). If you already have a domain name registered, you can transfer it to whatever platform you want.

A domain name is the URL (the address of the site in your browser’s search bar) which identifies a web page. For example, our domain name is freewebmentor.com. You can register domain names separately on sites like Domain.com, but website builders offer to register a domain name with them. Most make it available for free (initially at least), while a few charge a few extra dollars.

The domain name is one of the ways that a site presents itself on the Internet. So make sure the domain name is relevant to your business.

4. Pick your favorite Template 

Okay, you followed our steps exactly – you chose a website builder, signed up for a plan, and registered a domain. You can start building a website. Rather than letting you do all of this yourself, website builders use templates to guide you through the process.

Templates provide a structure for your website – a canvas to paint your website content. Here’s how you can create a website that looks great without hiring a designer.

Now your website has a design of its own, you can customize it and start uploading your content. You can also add up some plugins that will further help you in posting and creating some posts or forms regarding your business.

The final step you have to do is, you should take a look at your site before publishing it on the internet, so preview it on mobile and desktop both, so that you can get an idea about how your site looks on both platforms. 

Once the customization is done. Press the “Publish” button. Your website is now available on the internet. You can customize and modify it anytime you want.

Anyone can create a website and it costs (literally) nothing to figure out. Take a tour of some website builders and see what happens. You could end up doing something wonderful.

The post Four reasons why every business needs a website and how to do it yourself without hiring a web agency or freelancer. appeared first on FreeWebMentor.