Small Business Website Starter Kit – How To Develop a Website
Before we step into the body of this blog, just a small recap of what we’ve seen previously.
- When it comes to small business web development, there are several approaches you can consider. You can choose to use a website builder, write your own code, or outsource the project to a web development agency. Each option has its own set of advantages and considerations, so it’s important to assess your specific needs, budget, and technical expertise before making a decision.
- Register a domain name for your site
- Choose a website hosting plan
This is a starter kit blog series and you’re now in the second blog. You can read a detailed post on all the above-mentioned points in the previous blog. If you’re interested to check it out, do give it a read and come back! Trust us, you have useful insights there as well.
In this blog, we’ve discussed selecting a theme, developing the content, and adding functionalities to your small business website which should be handled with care.
Let’s hop into it.
1. Select a Website Theme
After registering a domain name and choosing a web hosting plan, you’ll have to next pick a theme that suits your business.
A theme refers to the overall design of your website including color scheme, font, header, footer, and every visual element that contributes to the look-and-feel of your website.
Why should You Use a Theme for Your Website?
Did you know?
94% of first impressions are related to the design of your website.
Therefore, to give your website a professional and appealing look, maintaining VISUAL CONSISTENCY is the key. For this sole purpose, themes can work effectively.
Difference between Pre-built Themes vs Customizable Themes
While you’re looking for a theme that is rich in UX/UI, aesthetics, interactivities, performance, and other design aspects, how can you neglect WordPress themes?! 75% of users assess a brand’s credibility based on its website design.
There are two ways you can choose a theme for your website, either you can make the pre-built themes as your go-to option or pick any customizable theme. For customizable themes, WordPress would be an ideal choice to pick from.
Pre-built Themes
- Cost-effective solution
- Easy and quick to set up
- Coding skill is not required
Pre-built Themes
- Bespoke solutions
- Optimal performance due to clean code
- Compatible with third-party extensions
Choose Pre-built Themes
- When you’re just starting a new small business with a limited budget
- When you don’t want too many design elements
Choose Customizable WordPress Themes
- When you want to design your website unique & creative
- When you need light-weight & clean code that make your website run smoothly
- When you are looking for custom features and functionalities in your website
Attractive WordPress Themes with Free Version for Your Small Business Website
2. Add Your Webpage Content
If the theme tends to be your website’s one eye, then the content is the other eye. 80% of marketers consider content creation to be their top priority.
Through user-centric content, you not only can win readers’ hearts, as an added advantage, you can also acquire better positions in search engines.
Did you know?
34% of web users are more likely to make an unplanned purchase after receiving personalized content.
If you’re passionate about content writing and hold writing skills, you can definitely go with the DIY approach. Else, you can outsource to a content marketing agency.
If you’re new to the content world and don’t have an idea of where to place the content, do not worry. We’ve scanned through many small business websites and found some webpages to be having some standard content and listed them below.
Free Content Writing Tools that can Make Your Work Easy
- Homepage – Short overview of your business and make sure you create smooth navigation to other sections of your site
- About us – Detailed information regarding your brand – who you are, your mission & vision, your brand’s history, and anything that speaks about your business
- Services – Pen down all the services that you offer. Add headings with a brief/detailed overview
- Products – List all the products if you’ve to sell any
- Contact us – Include your phone number, email, physical address, and other contact info for your users to contact
- Grammarly – Rectify spelling mistakes, clarity issues, and grammatical errors
- Answer the Public – Discover the frequently asked search queries
- Thesarus.com – Search for synonyms
- Keywords Everywhere – Look out for keywords
- Buzzsumo – Search for trending topics
- Canva – Design graphic content
- Google Docs – Pen down your content
Now, you need to share the content you’d written on the web, and this is where the Content Management System (CMS) plays a role.
| Features | WordPress | Squarespace | Wix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drag-and-drop editor | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Customization | Yes | Yes | Yes, but have a myriad of templates |
| Compatible with third-party extensions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Blogging platform | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free version is available | Yes | No | Yes |
3. Add Functionalities to Your Website
Till now, you read about theme selection and content development for your website. Up next, we’ll walk you through the process of integrating with third-party plugins. Consider you’ve bought a new car, do you just stop by there? No, right. You spend on some extra customizations like – stickers, speakers, organizers, etc.
This is a similar case with plugins installation for your small business website. Plugins are the tools that help you in adding new/extra functionalities to your website. For example, if you want to turn your website into an online store, then it’s as simple as to install an e-commerce plugin. We’ve written a detailed blog on this, check it for reference. It will help you!
Did you know?
42% of people will leave a website if it has poor functionality
Are you interested in installing different plugins for your website? Or customize a WordPress plugin as per your needs? If yes, you need not wander in search of plugins, with over 59,000+ plugins, to almost every requirement, WordPress can offer you a plugin.
Why can you choose WordPress plugins over others?
- You no need to overhaul your site, just install the plugin based on your ever-evolving business requirements
- Most of the plugins are available in free versions. You can give it a try at first, later, if you like its features you can upgrade to the premium version
- You can find the plugin information on their official site
- In just a few clicks, you can easily install the plugin on your WordPress website
- WordPress plugins are rarely incompatible with other tools
Disclaimer: The ease of accessing and installing the plugins will wrongly lead you to add more plugins which will ultimately end up in plugin bloat. To avoid this,
- Think twice before installation if the plugin can for sure meet your requirement
- Select plugins built by authorized developers
- Make sure not more than one plugin is installed for single functionality
Further, if the plugin you installed caused any performance issue on your website, then you’ve to abruptly deactivate it and push it back to the testing phase.
Below, we’ve curated a few plugins based on popularity, ease-of-use, features, pricing, and reviews that can serve various purposes. Do make a note of these and give more value to your website.
There are many more plugins in WordPress. If you want us to write a separate blog on must-have WordPress plugins for a small business website, do let us know in the comments below.
Bottomline
Now, it’s your turn. Hope this knowledge sharing seemed useful to you!
Today, most of our traditional practices have been centered around technology. Marketing your brand through word-of-mouth, banners, campaigns, all these are gradually decaying.
Especially, the onset of pandemic has become a pitfall for physical brick-and-mortar stores. People nowadays are interested in making in-person visits to shops which led to the expansion of e-commerce functionality – online stores.
If we want to talk about this, we need to write a separate blog post. Hence, we’ve pushed it as the third one in this series. We’re winding up with this here now.
Like this, we frequently write blog posts about Small business web development services, stay tuned with Small Business Web to get regular updates. Now, all you have to do is leave us a message or give us a call +1 (919) 234-5140. Do share your thoughts about this post in the comments below and that will keep us motivated to give you more valuable content. We are happy to extend our support to you at any time.
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About the Author - Pavithra Samuel
I'm a passionate copywriter at Small Business Web sharing a special bond with digital marketing. I aim at delivering masterpiece content for which my research helps a lot. I always search for unique inspirations and write them all down to use in my blogs & content. I make the best use of the upgraded tools & technologies that greatly assist in content writing. Other than reading & writing, my other two friends are food & music. On and often, I do write blog posts, to get regular updates, stay tuned with us.
