If you insist on building your own website …

Websites

If you’re not going to a hire a professional … at least do it right

A website is your most powerful business tool

After 16 years of building websites, we are still mystified when we see websites built by business owners. They have either used a free service or have hired their kids to build a site. A website is the same as opening your doors to your business.

Tip # 1: If none of the information below makes sense, then maybe you shouldn’t be building your own website.

Once developed, properly, a website will:

  • help sell, support and promote your business, product or service every minute of every day
  • become one of your best employees / assistants

There are a lot of website services out there that offer the ability to build your own site for free.

Tip # 2: You know what they say about Free stuff … you get what you pay for.

Its understandable that you might be looking to save money where you can when starting a business. If your business absolutely requires a website to be successful, then why are you doing it yourself if you have never built one before?

  • Make sure you at least have your own domain name / URL (www.yourname.ca)
    • Running a business website off of someone else’s domain with your name added to the end is pointless
    • Example: www.wix.com/yourcompanyname
  • Write your own website content and use your own pictures or stock photos
    • Google Images is not a stock photo website
    • Borrowing images off of other websites is theft and is so, so bad
  • Keep the site navigation easy to use
    • Site users do not want to have to click 3, 4 or 5 times to just find the information they want
    • Google actually boosts your website in their listings if you have user friendly navigation
  • Make sure your website is mobile friendly (automatically resizes to fit on smartphones and tablets) 
  • Think like your customer (or think how you like to search and use the internet)
    • Users won’t wait for slow loading sites
    • Be specific as to what you are selling or offering
    • Google wants at least 300 words per page and at least one image to help them properly index the pages on your site