Creating a Business Website
The internet is an extremely powerful and relatively inexpensive tool in your arsenal when you are seeking to start a business. A good website can give your business credibility and a professional image which can be paramount in attracting an initial customer base. The businesses that typically get this right are the ones that integrate with various social media and marketing tools and invest time and effort in design, layout and structure to ensure the user experience is intuitive and streamlined.
…So how do you go about crafting the perfect business website?
Planning a Business Website
It’s not a good idea to jump straight into purchasing domain names, hosting and security until you know exactly what you want from your website. From that regard, it is important to assess the following:
- What functionality are you requiring? The functionality required for an e-commerce site is far different than that required for a site that will be primarily used as a marketing tool to generate leads which is also very different to the needs of a site that is going to be publishing significant amounts of content on a regular basis.
- Design and navigation – It is important to understand what content you are going to be uploading to your site and mapping out a logical navigation system and easy to use interface for your customers. As a first step it’s a good idea to scan the websites of other organizations to get an idea of the usual structure and sections before diving into your own.
- Storage – Are you looking to store customer data or produce significant amounts of content? If so you will need to estimate how much and select a hosting provider that can grow in line with growth in your content and customer base.
Choose a domain name
Once you are done planning the site, the next step is to decide on and purchase your domain name. For this you will need to find a domain name broker or “one-stop shop”.
- One stop shop – For small or simple websites a “one-stop shop” is often the quickest and easiest way of setting up a professional looking and easy to manage website. Such tools offer the full end-to-end solution including website builder, domain name and hosting. They are a little pricier than and not as flexible as a domain name broker solution, but you will be paying a small premium for convenience.
- Domain Name Brokers – A domain name broker will allow you to search a directory of available domains which you can then purchase and register for your business. Typically this is for a 1 year term or longer and dependent on the name required, is often relatively inexpensive. Often domain name brokers will also offer hosting solutions in a package, yet it usually pays to shop around. If you go down the domain name broker route you will also need to find an appropriate content management system which will enable you to build your website (see below).
There are many domain name brokers you can choose from, but the most popular are the following:
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Tip: Often when selecting a domain you want to focus on getting the .com version as this is globally the most common and easily identifiable. Depending on where you are operating your business though a local domain such as .co.uk (UK) or .ca (Canada) may just do the trick for a cheaper price.
Research and choose a hosting provider
As mentioned this can go hand in hand with your domain name registry as often many domain name providers also provide a hosting element. However it often pays to shop around for a better deal and it might make sense to purchase your domain name through one provider, but host your website through another. Things to consider when selecting a hosting provider:
- Storage requirements
- Compatibility with your desired content management system
- Ease of use
- Cost – Not just initial cost (many providers offer an introductory price), but ongoing cost and additional incremental cost should your storage requirements increase.
From the hosting provider perspective, the below are typically the best contenders:
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Summary Probably the most recognisable domain name and hosting providers out there, largely down to its synonymous brand and aggressive marketing. GoDaddy often offers excellent promotional pricing for new customers, but it is often worth shopping around at renewal. | Summary Cemented itself as one of the biggest domain and hosting providers in the world following a period of rapid growth. Bluehost offers some of the best service around at some of the lowest prices | Summary Hostgator is one of the most popular hosting providers in the industry. Offering some of the most competitive pricing with a 99.9% uptime guarantee and 24/7 support |
Advantages - Excellent uptime | Advantages - Its cheap | Advantages - Free migration |
Disadvantages - High renewal fees | Disadvantages - High renewal fees | Disadvantages - Slightly higher pricing |
Pricing - Introductory pricing is some of the best around | Pricing - Like GoDaddy their introductory pricing is some of the best around, it pays to shop around at renewal though | Pricing - Pricing is slightly higher per month than some of the promotional offers from other providers, however it is still extremely competitive and is often a cheaper renewal vs other providers. |
Overall Star Rating | Overall Star Rating | Overall Star Rating |
Pick an intuitive and easy to use content management system
From the perspective of content management systems, there are four main leaders Joomla, Drupal, Shopify and WordPress. From my perspective it pays to stick with one of the big four, due to popularity they are regularly updated, have a wealth of available templates to get you started (that are also customisable) and offer a large catalogue of plug-ins which will prove extremely useful should your business grow and website require additional functionality.
 | Wordpress.org is the world’s most popular CMS software and powers 35% of all websites on the internet from blogs, to commercial websites and online stores. Wordpress has gained such popularity as it is friendly to both beginners and developers alike with a plethora of templates and plugins (both paid and free) to get you started along with a deeper ability to produce more custom designs |
 | Joomla is the second most popular CMS software on the internet powering around 5% of all websites (although with a declining market share). In comparison to WordPress and other CMS systems, Joomla also offers an extensive array of templates and plugins (although not quite as extensive as WordPress) and is often cited as the go-to should you wish to explore more advanced user access controls out of the box |
 | Drupal is a free open-source platform similar to both Joomla and Wordpresss with a plethora of plugins and customizable templates available. Drupal arguably has more functionality than Wordpress, however as a consequence is a little more complex to master. Drupal is better than Wordpress should you be looking to build a complex website with enhanced security features whilst also leaving potential for multiple site stakeholders. |
 | Shopify is the most popular e-commerce platform that enables beginners (and experienced developers) the ability to create online stores without coding ability. Plans range from $29-$299 a month along with some additional % based transaction fees dependent on what package you select. Offering a number of free templates (along with access to the core code for customization), 24 hour support and scalability for both small and large organizations it is an excellent solution should you be looking to create and run an online store. |
Website security
Once your website is live, it is definitely good practice to manage and maintain your website security. From this perspective you can:
- Ensure you keep your website, CMS and plugins updated. If there are new releases or security patches available you must download them as soon as possible. Older unsupported versions may have vulnerabilities which will leave your website open to attack.
- Install SSL Certificates. Although these certificates don’t protect websites from attacks, they do encrypt data in transit between the host and the client. An SSL certificate therefore adds an extra layer of creditability to your website and is absolutely imperative should your site be accepting customer payment details. You can get a free SSL certificate through LetsEncrypt.org or alternatively your hosting provider will often offer a commercial solution that may suit your needs (such a solution will come with support whilst the free LetsEncrypt solution will not).
- Install scanning and monitoring tools. These tools will allow you to analyse how your website is performing and understand whether or not there are any irregularities. There are many tools available on the market, but here are a few that may be worth consideration
- Jetpack
- Acunetix
- Sitelock
- Get a website firewall – Even with a fully up to date website and suitable encryption through SSL a website’s server or network can still be vulnerable to DDoS attacks. Getting a web application firewall is designed to prevent such attacks. A DDoS attack can slow or even take down your website which could essentially lose your business reputation and/or sales so it pays to weigh up the expense of securing a suitable solution with the cost should a successful attack land. Whilst there are many solutions on the market, here is some of our picks:
- Cloudflare WAF
- Incapsula WAF
- GoDaddy WAF
- Surcuri
- Use a fully managed website security service. There are specific website security services out there designed to protect your website from vulnerabilities along with providing adequate backup facilities in the event of an attack. Such facilities often come at a premium price, but do take much of the security burden off your hands: Some of our recommended solutions are:
- IBM Managed Security Services
- Symantec Managed Security Services
- Lumen Managed Security Services
Pictures and logos
Unfortunately, when you see a picture you like on the internet, you can’t simply copy and paste it into your website…Unless of course you want to deal with some potential legal discourse in the form of copyright infringement. However there are solutions, both paid and free to retrieve licensed photos that you can use on your website safe in the knowledge that you won’t be ending up dealing with a copyright infringement claim.
Such resources include:
 | Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that allows openly licensed and public domain works to be discovered and used by everyone. It browses millions of open APIs across the internet to source free to use images. |
 | Shutterstock is the biggest and most well known repository of stock photos with both free and premium content to suit your requirement. It boasts the biggest library of content in comparison to the other options with over 1 billion images, videos and music tracks. |
 | Pixabay is a vibrant community which shares copyright free images, videos and music. Content is released under the Pixabay license which makes them safe to use, even for commercial purposes. Pixabay is a smaller entity than the others listed here and therefore has a smaller library, however it is still a very solid choice to browse when looking for free stock photos. |
 | Unsplash brings together a community of photographers boasting a community of over 200,000 and over 2 million images all free to use under the Unslpash license. |
Key Takeaways
A professional website takes careful planning
A professional looking website can give your business credibility and enhance its reputation, but it takes careful planning and effort to produce. You will need to think about a Domain, Hosting and Content Management Provider, as well as plan out your design and required functionality. You will also then have to ensure such design and functionality fits into your budget!
Depending on the nature of your business website, security could be essential
Website security is always essential and it pays to have some of the basic security plugins out there in order to monitor and backup your site. You should also ensure you update all systems and plugins on a regular basis to the latest versions to avoid using legacy versions with potential vulnerabilities. Further security and paid solutions may however be required in the event your business will be processing significant user data and/or taking payment information. You will want your customers safe in the knowledge anything they share with your business is safe.
Pictures are vital to create an attractive site, but you can’t just copy and paste!
Unfortunately you can’t just copy and paste pictures you like into your website, unless you want to deal with potential Intellectual Property claims. There is however free content out there if you know where to look! We recommend Shutterstock, Pixabay, Creative Commons and Unsplash.
