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Whether you’re starting a new business<\/a> and writing a business plan<\/a>\u00a0or rebranding<\/a> and growing an existing business, you need a business website.<\/p>\n Today’s consumers expect businesses to have websites. They consider a website to be a sign of a reputable business. They want the convenience of learning more about a business whenever they want… and without talking to anyone.<\/p>\n You can’t afford not to have a business website.<\/p>\n The problem is that many business owners are intimidated about setting up their own websites.<\/p>\n We’re here to put your minds at ease.<\/p>\n Step 1: Choose a business name with an available web domain.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Step 2: Get a custom logo designed.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Step 3: Choose a web hosting service.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Step 4: Register your domain.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Step 5: Get your website design.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Step 6: Hire a developer to code and deploy your site.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n <\/div> Here\u2019s what you need to know…<\/p>\n You know that your business will eventually need a website. We suggest that you start planning for that right from the start.<\/p>\n That means keeping your web domain in mind when choosing your business name<\/a>.<\/p>\n Today, businesses race to stake their claims to web domains. A prime web domain increases your customers’ chances of finding your business – they\u2019re valuable internet real estate.<\/p>\n So, when choosing your business name, ensure an accompanying web domain is available.<\/p>\n A common mistake we often see is that a business operates under one name but a completely different web domain. This will only confuse your customers and prospective customers.<\/p>\n The best domains are short, include your business name, and feature a common domain extension – like \u201c.com.\u201d This makes the website easy for customers and clients to find and remember. Recent domain statistics<\/a> confirm that .com continues to dominate, with over 130.6 million registered domains in the U.S. and over 350 million worldwide, representing 37% of all registered domains.<\/p>\n While .com domains remain the most popular, .net, .biz, .org, .edu, and .io have grown in usage and are worth considering.<\/p>\n Aim for a domain that is \u201cyourbusinessname.com.\u201d But, it\u2019s also a good idea if you have a small budget to register any parallel domains (sunshine.com, sunshine.biz, sunshine.net, etc.) and then redirect them to your main website. This way, if a customer searches and gets the domain extension wrong, they\u2019ll still find your business.<\/p>\n So, as you consider your top business name options, check to see which names are available as a strong domain.<\/p>\n If a nice, short domain featuring your business name of choice is unavailable, you may want to consider a different name with an available web domain.<\/p>\n To verify that an acceptable web domain for a particular name is available, search here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your web host may eventually help you register your domain, but avoid domain searches affiliated with web hosting<\/a> services. Many hosting services will buy the domain you searched for (if you don\u2019t buy it immediately) and then offer to sell it back to you at a higher price. Good for their business, but not for yours.<\/p>\n For more on naming your business, read 10 Tips for Naming Your Startup or Small Business<\/a> and Why and How to Rename Your Business<\/a>.<\/p>\n Build a stronger brand with our free guides. Get actionable insights to define your brand\u2019s unique voice, understand your market, and stand out to customers. The guides are concise, actionable, practical, and tailored for the busy entrepreneur.<\/p> Build a stronger brand with our free guides. Get actionable insights to define your brand\u2019s unique voice, understand your market, and stand out to customers. The guides are concise, actionable, practical, and tailored for the busy entrepreneur.<\/p> Build a stronger brand with our free guides. Get actionable insights to define your brand\u2019s unique voice, understand your market, and stand out to customers. The guides are concise, actionable, practical, and tailored for the busy entrepreneur.<\/p> Your company logo<\/a> is the cornerstone of your company’s brand identity<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your audience will identify your business by your logo. This is why you want a unique, memorable, timeless logo and (most importantly) specific to your brand<\/em>.<\/p>\n Generic logo designs don\u2019t tell your audience anything about your business, making the logo and the business utterly forgettable. <\/span><\/p>\n That’s why we advise business owners to steer clear of logo templates and generators. These programs are designed to mix and match stock art to create a “unique” final result. However, the results are never unique because they’re all derived from the same stock art<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t get confused by claims that some of these logo makers use artificial intelligence (AI) to create their designs. If you look at the examples on their sites, they\u2019re using generic elements – thousands of generic glyphs, images, and other things that ensure your logo will look like thousands of other logos.<\/p>\n The best logos are custom-designed uniquely for your business. Such logos communicate a feeling or an idea that aligns with the business\u2019s unique brand identity – think about Nike’s swoosh<\/a> or Target’s bullseye. When that feeling or idea resonates with a consumer, your logo (and business) makes a memorable impression. But that can only occur when the logo is designed specifically for your unique brand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Your logo should be featured everywhere as the visual centerpiece of your brand to reinforce its impact. The more frequently your audience sees your logo, the more familiar your brand becomes.<\/p>\n Familiarity builds recognition and trust – two key components in building strong customer relationships.<\/p>\n Your logo should be prominently featured in your website design. But it should have a greater impact on your website than just being slapped up in the top left-hand corner. Your logo should serve as the inspiration for your website’s entire visual design.<\/p>\n Your logo should inform your website’s color scheme. The fonts you use on your website should relate to the fonts in your logo. Your logo should inspire your website’s visual style. Got it? Good.<\/p>\n So, invest in a strong, brand-specific logo that can inspire your web designer to craft a unique and brand-specific website.<\/p>\n You can choose a web hosting service<\/a> with a business name (and domain) selected and your new logo locked down!<\/p>\n Think of hosting as the online real estate where your website will live. It’s important to build your website on a solid foundation.<\/p>\n The quality of your web host (among other factors) determines your website’s speed and reliability. If your hosting service goes down, so does your website. So, look for CMS hosting<\/a> services with reliable service ( or “uptime”) and fast server speeds. You can expect all this if you deploy your project on a cloud VPS<\/a>. Or, if you use Drupal, explore Drupal hosting<\/a> to ensure optimal performance and scalability. These services have gained momentum because they offer stable performance and scalability.<\/p>\n Some hosting services offer all-in-one packages that include using their website builder software. And that sounds great until you realize you can\u2019t ever move your website from that host.<\/p>\n So, if your business outgrows what that host can accommodate – or if they raise their prices – you\u2019ll have to build a brand new website from scratch when you move. And then you’ll lose the online brand identity your visitors have grown to trust.<\/p>\n Plus, many of those all-in-one packages offer poorly designed templates to make your website look like thousands of others. It’s hard to succeed if your business can’t stand out.<\/p>\n We recommend avoiding all-in-one website packages that promise to do everything for you. Instead, explore hosting solutions tailored to your needs. VPS hosting<\/a> strikes the right balance of flexibility, performance, and control for many businesses. If you anticipate higher traffic or need advanced features, you might consider cloud or dedicated hosting. Whichever option you choose, partnering with an independent web host helps you maintain full ownership and control of your website as your business grows.<\/p>\n Consider giving services like Hostinger<\/a>,\u00a0 Dreamhost<\/a>, or A2 Hosting<\/a> a try. These trustworthy and reliable hosting services will take good care of you and your website. If your site is on WordPress, consider WPEngine<\/a> and Kinsta<\/a>, two of the best in the business.<\/p>\n Certain hosts specialize in specific platforms. For example, PHP 8 hosting<\/a> from a service like Cloudways is popular because it’s fast, flexible, and well-supported.<\/p>\n To claim the web domain you’ve chosen (and prevent other businesses from using it), register it. Namecheap<\/a> and GoDaddy<\/a> are two popular registrars.<\/p>\n Through most web hosting services<\/a>, you can register your domain name (e.g., www.yournewbusiness.com) and detect which company is hosting<\/a> any website.<\/p>\n In general, here’s what you should expect:<\/p>\n And that’s the registration process in a nutshell. Pretty simple, right?<\/p>\n With that taken care of, it’s time to talk about design…<\/p>\n Today’s business owners have\u00a0many options for\u00a0website design<\/a>. And right off the bat, there’s a big choice\u2014template<\/span>\u00a0or custom website?<\/p>\n The web is littered with website builders promising custom websites and fast set-ups that are so easy a baby could do it. Take a look at Weebly, Squarespace, and Wix, for example.<\/p>\n But, like most things that sound too good to be true, these promises bear a second look.<\/p>\n As mentioned, these all-in-one website builders lock you into using their hosting services. And that may not serve your business\u2019s best interests in the long run.<\/p>\n These all-in-one website builders are based on templates, which are available for anyone to use. So, despite their \u201ccustom\u201d claims, thousands of other businesses will have a website that looks just like yours.<\/p>\n While it’s true that templates can be customized by modifying color schemes or using custom-designed illustrations or original photos, they are not truly custom – or unique. And many templates are extremely limited in terms of the modifications you can make.<\/p>\n The overall structure of a template is predetermined independently of your business needs. Therefore, you risk limiting your online business according to the capabilities of the template you select.<\/p>\n For instance, you won’t be able to perform conversion rate optimization tactics like adjusting call-to-action placement or testing any substantial changes to the overall design. This is extremely limiting from a marketing perspective and leaves little room for your business\u2019s web presence to grow and evolve.<\/p>\n Templates can help when you need specific functionality that’s already available. For example, if you’re opening a yoga studio, you have many yoga studio software<\/a> options that can help you create accounts, add customers, manage appointments, and everything else you might need to run your studio. Similar products exist for other niche industries.<\/p>\n Template Pros<\/strong>– quick and easy set-up As we wrote in our complete guide on how to start a business<\/a>:<\/p>\n Your website is one of your new business\u2019 most important ambassadors and a crucial component of your marketing and branding strategy<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So it’s important to get this right. Fortunately, a custom website design isn\u2019t as hard as you think.<\/p>\n And custom-designed websites ultimately offer you far more control, a truly branded design that accurately represents your business and the functionality your business requires.<\/p>\n Some business owners worry that the cost of website design<\/span><\/a> can be prohibitively high.<\/p>\n Many design companies and agencies indeed charge thousands of dollars for their services. But this isn’t universally true (crowdspring’s custom website design<\/span><\/a> projects start at just $899, including all fees).<\/p>\n For new business owners who aren\u2019t design experts, a crowdsourced platform like crowdspring<\/a> is a perfect solution.<\/p>\n You tell the designers what you need. Then they pitch various website designs – built from scratch to your specifications. Your feedback guides the designers to make revisions. And then, you can choose the design that serves your business best.<\/p>\n This option provides a great deal of security for small business owners. Crowdsourced platforms provide:<\/p>\n Before posting a project on a crowdsourced design site, think about what you want and need from your website design to communicate that clearly to the designers.<\/p>\n Check out 16 Crucial Website Design Factors That Help Your Small Business Increase Customers and Profits<\/a>, and Grow Your Small Business With These 7 Website Design Best Practices<\/a> for more web design ideas and best practices to guide you.<\/p>\n Custom Website Cons<\/strong> takes a little longer and is more expensive than template-based sites. With your custom website design files in hand, you’re very close to having a live website.<\/p>\n Before a website design can become a functional website users can interact with, it must be coded and deployed so you may need to hire a developer<\/a>.<\/p>\n Coding is the behind-the-scenes magic that creates an interactive web experience for your users. It makes drop-down menus appear, buttons clickable, and search results deliverable.<\/p>\n Some website designers are also coders<\/a> (or \u201cdevelopers\u201d). But design and coding are two separate skill sets. And it\u2019s important to know that there are also further specializations among web developers. There are front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers.<\/p>\n When seeking out a web developer<\/a>, make sure to hire the right person for the job.<\/p>\n The developer you should hire depends on your project’s complexity.<\/p>\n A full-stack developer<\/a> would be a great fit for simple “brochure” websites that primarily provide business information, a blog, and a form for contacting customer support. A good JavaScript\u00a0developer<\/a> will also get the job done, especially if you’re using a framework like WordPress<\/a>.<\/p>\n But, if you\u2019re building an interactive website that must perform complex tasks beyond what we\u2019ve described above, you\u2019ll need the front- and back-end support. So, hire a full-stack developer<\/a> or both a front-end and a back-end developer.<\/p>\n You can hire affordable freelance web developers (front-end, back-end, and full-stack) from sites like Toptal<\/a> and Upwork<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many crowdspring web designers are also experienced and accomplished developers, so don’t hesitate to ask us<\/a> if you need something coded.<\/p>\n The developer will be responsible for carrying you to the finish line. They’ll code your website and then walk you through the final deployment process (where you link the newly built site to your web domain). Once this is done, your website will be live!<\/span><\/p>\n And that\u2019s it! Just 6 steps to a brand-new business website. That wasn\u2019t so bad.<\/p>\n To make life even easier, here’s a quick recap for you:<\/p>\nHere are 6 steps to create a business website:<\/strong><\/h2>
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/images.crowdspring.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/27125439\/cs-200px.png\")
<\/div>\nStep 1: Choose a business name with an available web domain<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/images.crowdspring.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/27130155\/web-design-1327873_1280.png\")
<\/p>\nSo, what makes a good web domain?<\/h3>\n
Searching for a Web Domain:<\/h3>\n
Essential Branding Toolkit for Entrepreneurs<\/h2>
Get your free branding toolkit<\/i><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>Essential Branding Toolkit for Entrepreneurs<\/h2>
Get your free branding toolkit<\/i><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>Essential Branding Toolkit for Entrepreneurs<\/h2>
Get your free branding toolkit<\/i><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\nStep 2: Get a custom business logo<\/h2>\n
But what does a logo have to do with my website?<\/h3>\n
Step 3: Choose a web hosting service<\/h2>\n
But what about those all-in-one deals?<\/h3>\n
Step 4: Register your domain.<\/h2>\n
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Step 5: Get your website design<\/h2>\n
\nTemplate Cons<\/strong> – This won\u2019t differentiate you from the competition and limits your website\u2019s ability to grow with your business.<\/p>\nHow to Get a Custom Website Design<\/h3>\n
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\nCustom Website Pros<\/strong> – unique and branded design, complete control, a website that meets your current needs and can grow with your business.<\/p>\nStep 6: Hire a developer to code and deploy your website<\/h2>\n
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What kind of developer do you need?<\/h3>\n
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