How to Create a Business Website: Where to Start

Where do you start when creating a website?

Not with design and not with picking a contractor. With the answer to two questions: what the site should do and where people will come to it from.

What it should do - a specific visitor action: submit a request, book a slot, call, place an order, download a price list. "Just to have one" is not a task, and a site built for that turns into a shop window nobody opens.

Where people will come from - ads, search, social media, business cards, referrals. The structure depends on this: ads need one page with one offer, search needs several pages for different queries.

These two answers determine everything else: the type of site, its scope, the price and the timeline. Until you have them, any discussion of design is premature.

Which type of site do you need?

Three options cover almost every small business need.

A landing page - one long page with one offer and a form. You need it when you are launching ads: a click should have one goal with no forks. The fastest and cheapest option: from $250.

A multipage site - a home page, separate service pages, an about page, contacts. You need it when you have several services and want traffic from search: each page catches its own query. From $600.

A catalogue - a multipage site with product cards and a request form. You need it when there are many products but the purchase closes in a chat. An online store with a cart and online payment is a separate story, more expensive and requiring daily attention.

If you are torn between a landing page and a multipage site - start with the landing page. It launches faster, and expanding a site later is cheaper than rebuilding a big one that missed.

What should you prepare in advance?

This is half the project timeline, and it is almost always exactly where everything stalls. What takes up the other half is covered in how long website development takes.

A logo and brand colours, if you have them. If you do not - not a problem, but say so right away.

Photos. Your work, your products, your premises, your team. Real shots work better than stock images, and this is the case where the difference is visible to the naked eye.

Service descriptions and prices. A rough draft in your own words is enough. The text can be polished together, but only you can supply the facts about your business.

A list of your customers' frequent questions. What people ask you every day is the best material for a site: those are exactly the questions a visitor is looking to answer.

Access to the domain and hosting, if you already have them. While you are at it, check whose name they are registered in - it should be yours.

Start collecting this the moment you first think about a site, not when the developer asks for it.

Who is going to build the site?

There are four options: a website builder on your own, a freelancer, an agency and a one-person studio. Each has its own price, its own process and its own risks - I went through them in detail in How to Choose a Web Developer and Not Get Burned.

The choice is determined by the scale of the task, not by the contractor's advertising. Work out the scale - and half the decision makes itself.

How does the work go?

The order I consider right, and the one I work by myself. How much time each stage takes is broken down in how long website development takes.

The brief. A short questionnaire: what the business is, who the customer is, what the services are, what needs to be on the site. Five to ten minutes, with no mandatory meetings.

The proposal. What I do, for how much, by when - in writing and before payment. The price is fixed for the agreed scope.

The visual direction. Before the full build we agree on a couple of references and the first screen: dark or light, minimal or rich, with photos or without. Turning around here is free, on a finished site it is expensive.

The build. Development with interim versions in a shared chat, not a finished site revealed at the end.

The launch. Domain, hosting, SSL, checking on phones, testing the form, connecting analytics. After that - handover of all the access.

What has to be on the site by launch?

The minimum set without which a site does not work as a tool.

A working request form, tested with a real submission - not "the button clicks" but the request arrived. A proper mobile version, because most visitors will come from a phone. Connected analytics where a form submission counts as a goal. A security certificate, otherwise the browser marks the site as not secure. And the access in your hands: the domain and hosting registered in your name.

If any of this is missing - the site is not ready, however good it looks.

What do you do after launch?

A site does not bring traffic by itself - traffic has to be brought to it.

Ads give a result immediately: you launch, the clicks start, you can see the conversion. Search gives a result slowly, over months, but does not charge for every click. Both work, and people usually start with ads, because ads show faster whether the site converts or not.

Two or three weeks after launch, look at the numbers: how many people arrive, how many reach the form, how many submit. Those steps show what to improve - and that is a conversation about facts, not about tastes.

If you want to talk through your own case - get in touch, describe your business and what you need, and I will tell you the type of site, the price and the timeline.