How To Build Your Own Website

So you have that great business idea. What’s next?

One of the many things to sort out is the website. You should ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I even need a website?

It seems like a no-brainer but if nothing else it’s worth thinking about how your customers will find you.

For example, you are an events-based business and all your customers will find you through Facebook. In that case a Facebook page may suffice.

2. What type of site should I have?

Here it starts getting a little more tricky. In order to work out what type of site you should have, you should think about, what you want your customers to do on your site. Everything else flows from that.

Example: Dog grooming business.

Imagine you have a dog grooming business. You want your customers to make an appointment for a grooming session. How can a website help?

• It can show your phone number so people can call you to make an appointment.
• It should convince people of the value of your service. That can be done by showing pictures of groomed dogs and/or testimonials from happy customers.
• You can educate your customers by talking about how important dog grooming is and how it is done.
• Etc.

Based on that, a content driven website will suit you best. There are many great tools and services available where you can create such a website yourself:

• WiX
• Squarespace
• Wordpress
• And many many more.

They offer a simple interface and allow you to do it all yourself.

Example: Souvenir retailer

If you want to build a retail business, like, say, souvenir store, you want your customers to:

• Find your physical store (if you have one)
• Buy your stuff online

What you need here is an e-commerce website. Like content websites, there are services available that allow you to get going by yourself with a minimal amount of technical knowledge:

• Shopify
• Magento to name just a few.

You can do this exercise for many businesses and you will find that there are many tools available that allow you to get going by yourself without too much effort.

3. Who should create and maintain the site?

If you are not sure and are willing and interested to have a go I would encourage you to do so. If nothing else you will get a feeling for the effort involved.

Later on there is a good case for outsourcing the work to an expert and concentrating on your business regardless of how technical or non-technical your are. You typically have bigger fish to fry than the website.

This growth can happen sooner and more organic than you think. For instance if your dog grooming business runs really well, you may not have time to be on the phone and book appointments. Now, what if your website would allow customers to book appointments online?

Final Note

This is a note on my own behalf more than anything else. Please don’t ask a web developer to use tools like WiX or Squarespace. It is like asking a car mechanic to work with boxing gloves on. We need to be using the powerful tools where we honed our skills for years in order to be efficient and effective on your behalf.