How To Make Your First Business Site: 5 Main Steps
Tags: firstbusiness, develope
Published: 2020-02-21 10:40:43

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There were times when it was intimidating for vendors to move their business online: it was too expensive and not really profitable&hellip; But not anymore.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Now we live in an era of digitalization and online marketing when people prefer to search the Internet to find the needed services, learn more about your business and finally buy online.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fortunately, creating a business website is not as expensive to develop and support as it used to be before. For lots of businesses building a business web-site may appear to be the best investment.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In today&rsquo;s blog post, we will give you some tips on how to make your first business site.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Step 1: Set Your Goals</span></h2>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you are reading this article, I suppose you already have some idea of your future business website. But before you start turning your idea into a business plan, think of:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What is your goal of creating your business website?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How can your website is going to help customers?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What are the expected benefits from your website?</span></li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Answering these questions will help to make your website idea more structured and set the basic goals before moving to the development phase.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Step 2: </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Choose</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Your Team</span></h2>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Basically, there are two main models of software development you are going to choose between: offshore development and in-house software development.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Why choose offshore development:</span></h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cheaper prices for development;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">No need to manage the employees;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Access to the global pool of talents;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Saving time and money spent on recruiting.</span></li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Why choose in-house development:</span></h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Easy communication and coordination;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Full control of the process;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ability to make quick changes;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">No language or time barriers.</span></li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">No matter what type of team you will choose, check the portfolio and customer reviews of those offshore companies or your potential in-house developers. Try to meet them in person to improve communication in the very beginning of the project.</span></p>
<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Step 3: Start With Discovery</span></h2>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Some vendors ignore this step as they see it as a useless waste of time. But it is not!</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We see the discovery phase as a base of any future project, as far as during it you can:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Conduct market research to see what your competitors do&hellip;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">...and who are your target audience;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Set the product requirements and make a list of must-have features;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Choose the technologies for the future business website;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Create a risk management plan to avoid mistakes during the development process.</span></li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As a result, the discovery phase helps you to determine the key points of development, see what unique features you can implement and think about how you can outstand the competitors.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Besides, we highly encourage you not to start with developing a fully featured website from the very beginning of your website project. It is much more cost efficient to start with </span><a rel="dofollow" href="https://sloboda-studio.com/blog/how-to-build-a-minimum-viable-product/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">building a minimum viable product</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and then steadily add new features to your website.</span></p>
<p><br /><br /></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Step 4: Go To Production</span></h2>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Let&rsquo;s look at the core 5 stages of software production.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Choosing a domain name</span></h3>
</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Surely, the success of your business will not depend on your domain name.But still domain name is one of the most important features of your future website. It's the URL you'll be sharing with your current and potential clients and promoting on social media. How to </span><a href="https://amylynnandrews.com/how-to-choose-a-domain-name/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">choose a domain name</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">? The domain name should be short, catchy and descriptive. Try to avoid numbers and abbreviations so you won&rsquo;t confuse your customers.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Once you decide on your domain name, do not forget to make sure:</span></p>
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>It is available</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">, so there are no other websites with the same name as yours.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>It can be copyrighted</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">, so you do not violate any copyrights.</span></li>
</ol>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Choosing a web host</span></h3>
</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To make your business website available for the customers, you will need a web host: a server to store all the data to make it available for the users. For small businesses, it is worth considering selecting an external host, as far as it is easier, faster and cheaper to connect than building your own server.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As your website and your traffic grows you might need to upgrade to another web host. Moreover, you can start collaborating with several hosts at a time. You can consider it for the future and come up with your host maintenance plans.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Coming up with tech solutions</span></h3>
</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When you start to develop a website from scratch, it is worth considering technologies that can facilitate the launch of your website.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The most startup friendly technologies are such framework Ruby on Rails or languages like PHP: they provide developers with a number of free tools and libraries and it makes the development more time-efficient.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Implementing a payment provider</span></h3>
</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It should be noted that this feature is necessary not for all kinds of business websites. The implementation of payment is a must-have if your business website offers some online purchases. There are several online payment solutions on the market you can choose from.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The most common and popular online payment gateways are </span><a href="https://stripe.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Stripe</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://www.braintreepayments.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Braintree</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://www.mangopay.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MANGOPAY</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://www.adyen.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Adyen</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://www.skrill.com/en/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Skrill</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://www.dwolla.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dwolla</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and </span><a href="https://pay.amazon.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Amazon Pay</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Quality Assurance</span></h3>
</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">By quality assurance is meant testing the final product. Even if you hired a good professional team, you have to make sure that your website works on all major browsers, like Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. Besides, do not forget to check if the website is mobile-friendly: all the above browsers should work correctly on both Android and iOS platforms.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Step 5: Promote!</span></h2>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nowadays without marketing your online product just does not exist.</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Make your potential customers know about your website: promote it through social media and other online channels. Use different social media to increase your audience reach and alert customers and clients about what's going on with your company:</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Facebook - to post news posts about your company;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Twitter - to make short news messages;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">LinkedIn - for business needs, networking or even hiring;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Instagram - to post pictures of your products or services and show your customers how you arrange the working process inside the company.</span></li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Plus, do not forget SEO or also search engine optimization. Use title tags, meta-descriptions, and optimize your website pages. These and other SEO optimization activities will help the search engines rank you correctly and help your customers find your website in the search results.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In short, to develop your first business site, you will need:</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">To come up with a well-structured plan for your website development;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Choose a reliable team;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Conduct a discovery phase;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Choose the core features for the first version of your business website&nbsp;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Conduct development, testing, and maintenance;</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Promoting the ready-made website with SEO and social networks.</span></li>
</ol>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We cannot describe you this feeling when your idea turns into an existing project - you can and should experience it yourself!</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Prepare for a long way, but after all, it is worth it.</span></p>