Running a service-based company is no easy task. Service businesses are run by busy individuals who have to wear many different hats to get their business off the ground. Oftentimes the business owner is the sole person responsible for the company’s sales, marketing, and customer support departments. And for the modern business owner, this now means becoming your own website designer and content manager too.
When you’re looking to create an online presence, you’re going to want a website that represents your brand. But if you’ve just started a business or are looking for ways to give your business a boost, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Trying to run your business and manage a website can feel like an impossible task and oftentimes leave your website neglected and outdated as your business progresses.
If you’re looking for a way to grow your business, you need a professional website that will give you more time with your clients and less time managing your site.
Creating an online presence for your business is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Whether you’re working with online leads or offline leads coming into an office or storefront, it’s important that you have a place where people can find out about who you are, and what you do, and learn more about your services.
That’s why we’ve put together this ultimate guide for service-based entrepreneurs like you! We’ll take a look at some of the best ways to build trust with potential customers and encourage them to contact you, all through your website. We also talk about how to build interest in your services by creating content that is informative, helpful, and valuable to your target market!
How to Obtain an Appropriate Domain Name
Your domain name is the digital address that people type in to arrive at your website. It can be anything you want it to be, but ideally, it should be easy to remember and spell, short and simple.
If your business name is available as a .com, that’s best. If it’s not available, try to get a .net or .org if you can. (It’s also fine to use a country-specific extension if your business is based in that country — for example, .ca for Canada.) Avoid any other extensions — no .biz or .xyz or anything like that. Remember, the key is simplicity and familiarity when it comes to domain name selection.
If your business name isn’t available, try adding descriptive words or location-specific words to your domain name search. You can use part of your business name or add an adjective in front of it — for example, “Tenacious” or “The Tenacious” for “Tenacious Marketing.” You can also try adding a location to the end of it: “TenaciousMarketingPhoenix”, “TenaciousMarketingAZ”, and so on.
If you don’t already have your domain name, it is time to get one. You can register a domain at GoDaddy.com, Namecheap.com, or any other domain registrar company. Like many things in life, domain names are rented, not owned. While you’re renting your domain name, no one else can use it. However, once you stop renting the name (say you close your business or you just don’t want to pay for it anymore), anyone can swoop in and begin renting your domain name themselves.
The good part of domain name renting is that domain names are quite inexpensive. Most domain suffixes, like .com or .net, can be yours for around $10-15 per year. While you’re at it, make sure to get your own hosting and email address as well (but not before you read the next section!)
Selecting a domain name can be difficult. Your domain name will be the foundation of your online presence and it is something that you will need to live with for years to come. This post discusses how to choose a domain name, including what are some of the most important factors to take into consideration when selecting a domain.
The Importance of Selecting a Web Hosting Provider
A website host (also known as a website hosting provider) is a business that provides the technology and services required to view a website on the internet. You link your domain name to your hosting account so that when people type in your website address, they are taken to the website you have built. Pretty neat, right?
Depending on the technology, hosting speed, and support package you choose, hosting services can cost anywhere from $2 to $100+ per month. Typically, when you buy an annual renewing plan instead of a monthly plan, the hosting provider will throw you a discount.
Some popular website hosting companies include:
All of these are good options with a variety of plans and packages. For a new small business starting out, a shared hosting plan will be the best option. A shared hosting plan is the most affordable hosting option to help you keep business expenses low, while still providing fast enough speeds and support that your website can provide a great user experience and still rank on Google.
Things to Think About When Creating a Website for Your Small Business
Choose your website building platform
You should ideally choose a user-friendly solution that allows you to create a website without any coding experience. Here are some suggestions for small businesses:
- WordPress. WordPress comes in two flavors. We’ll concentrate on WordPress.org, which provides the most features and gives you more control over your website. You’ll need to make your own hosting arrangements (more on that later).
- Hosted Website Builders. If you prefer all-in-one solutions, a reputable website builder like Squarespace or Wix might be a good fit. These platforms come with pre-built website designs that you can customize with a drag-and-drop tool. You won’t need to hire another company to host your site, but you’ll have less design freedom.
The cost of using a hosted website builder is determined by the plan you select. If you choose the Squarespace Business package, for example, it will cost you $18 per month.
WordPress, on the other hand, is an open-source project, which means it’s completely free to use. You will, however, be responsible for finding a web hosting provider (like the ones mentioned in the section above), which will be a menial cost, usually under $20 per month.
One other downside to using an all-in-one hosted website builder is that because each one is a proprietary building tool, it’s extremely difficult to switch builders later on. This essentially means that once you select a hosted builder, like Wix for example, you’ll be stuck with Wix and won’t be able to easily switch to another solution if your business outgrows the hosted builder’s functionality. This isn’t a problem for the majority of small business websites, but if your business ever pivots to provide a more custom website experience or needs to integrate with a proprietary tool, you’ll likely have to start over on a more flexible platform like WordPress.
We’ll concentrate on WordPress.org in this tutorial because we believe it’s the best solution for most small businesses.
Here are some of the reasons why we think WordPress is a great small business website platform:
- To create a website, you don’t need to be a developer or a techie.
- WordPress is a free program, keeping your expenses as low as possible.
- It’s extremely adaptable; you can easily change the appearance of your site or add new features, which means its functionality can grow as your company grows.
- WordPress is used by more than 43.3 percent of all websites on the internet, so your small business website will be in good company, and there are plenty of tutorials and guides on how to do just about anything.
- WordPress has been around since 2003, so its Plugin marketplace (where you can find free and paid plugins for additional functionality) is extremely mature and includes tens of thousands of one-click activation plugins.
Build the right Web Pages for your Audience
Every website is unique, but here are the five most important (and frequently visited) pages on most small business websites:
- Home: The home page gives potential customers their first impression of your company. And, while your time limit for making a great first impression online is several times longer than it is in real life (the average time spent on a website is 62 seconds), you’ll want to make every second count. Make sure your homepage includes a value proposition and some content about who you are and what you do. Additionally, think of the homepage as a place where visitors can find buttons/navigation to dive deeper into the parts of your website they care about (so make sure it contains links!)
- About Us: Customers, investors, job candidates, and even competitors may visit your about page to learn more about your business. A brief company history, mission or vision statement, executive leadership bios, and a few powerful client testimonials are typically included on a about page.
- Services: People may find their way to your website because they’re looking for a very specific solution. Many visitors, on the other hand, are unlikely to know who you are or what you do until they arrive. One of your site’s primary goals should be to communicate your company’s purpose and offerings to those potential leads. Make sure your services page lists each service you provide, a brief description of what’s included, how you perform the service, and answers to general questions a customer might have.
- Booking/Contact: The contact us page is the lead driver of a website for many small businesses and freelancers. Whether your company has a contact form, a calendar scheduler, an appointment booking app, a phone number, or an email address, this is where potential customers decide to contact a representative to learn more about your products and services. You should provide an opportunity for users to navigate to your Booking/Contact page from all other pages of your website.
- FAQ: Frequently asked question (FAQ) pages (or knowledge hubs) enable your company to respond to your audience’s needs more quickly and effectively. An effective FAQ resource can educate, inform, and guide the user through your website’s content and service offerings. The best part of an FAQ page is that it’s self-serve for visitors, which means less repetitive questions to your staff on the phone or by email.
- Bonus: Galley/Portfolio: If your service offering is one with visual appeal, you’ll want to invest in a gallery page. Consumers often want to see your work and what better way to show off than some before & after shots? On your website, each gallery should have a description at the top, above the thumbnails, that explains what the images are about. If necessary, it can be a short paragraph or a longer block of text to explain the image’s significance.
Display a clear description of your company prominently
What is a value proposition?
A value proposition is a brief statement that explains why a customer would choose your product or service over others. It expresses the most obvious benefit that customers receive by doing business with you. Every value proposition should address a customer’s problem and position your company as the solution provider. A great value proposition should always focus on how customers define your value, not necessarily what sets you apart from competitors.
It’s critical to let people know who you are and what you do right away on your small business website. Make sure your main homepage banner (also known as a “hero image”) and subsequent sections are a mixture of text and visual representations of your services and the benefits those services provide to your customers. In addition, you’ll want to place a text blurb near the top of the page that clearly and articulately describes who you are, what you do, and the problem your services solve.
Choosing an Appointment Scheduling Tool
Appointment schedulers are web-based business tools that allow clients to schedule, reschedule, and cancel appointments directly on your site. When customers want to schedule an appointment, they go to your company’s website, Facebook page, or any other location where the booking software is supported and select a date and time that works for them.
Appointment scheduling apps free you from the manual, repetitive work of managing schedules, allowing you to concentrate on growing your business.
Here are several appointment scheduling tools that are popular among service-based businesses:
- Acuity Scheduling
- 10to8 Scheduling
- Calendly
- Zoho Bookings
- Appointy
- Setmore
- Appointlet
- SimplyBook.me
How to Make Your Website Design Functional and Visually Appealing
An effective website design helps you promote your brand and sell your services. You will want to make sure your site navigation is easy to use while making it clear for visitors to find what they came to your site for in the first place.
Your design should always include a balance of functionality and visual appeal. This can be accomplished by creating a site that is easy to navigate, has a professional appearance, and provides relevant information. The following are some things to consider when designing an effective website:
Simplify Your Navigation for Better Usability
The navigation on your website is an important part of the user experience. When done correctly, it will increase user engagement and conversion rates. This article will provide you with some general guidelines for structuring your website’s navigation to meet the needs of your users.
There should be clear, simple navigation on every page of your website. Most people scan a page before reading, so it is important to make sure navigation stands out from the rest of the content. Try using a different font or color for navigation links or buttons. Utilize a color, font, and text size that contrasts the rest of your written and visual content. Your goal is to make the navigation stand out from the rest of the text on the page so visitors instantly know where to click next.
Keep It Simple
Too much clutter can make it difficult for people to find what they need quickly. Therefore, try to keep things simple and don’t include too much information or an overwhelming amount of content on any one page. The main goal of each page should be clearly stated above the fold so visitors know what they will get if they continue reading.
The part of a web page that is visible before scrolling is known as above-the-fold content. ‘Below the fold’ refers to content that must be viewed by scrolling down. The ‘fold’ is the point at which the browser window closes but the content continues below.
Another way to keep your web design simplistic and minimalistic is to make sure to provide your user with plenty of white space. White space between pieces of content makes your pages seem less crowded and easier to read (or skim). Lastly, make sure your pages have clearly defined content sections (we love to use heading text to give each section a title) to provide a sense of organizational structure and hierarchy.
This is where Opasite Web Design can assist you. Opasite is a professional web design firm that specializes in web design for entrepreneurs in the service industry.
Opasite’s professional web design plans are affordable, starting at only $99 per month. Opasite is a Quincy, Massachusetts-based website design company that does everything for you. Opasite offers expert website design services tailored to your needs, as well as flawless content writing and the critical Search Engine Optimization your site requires to be found by customers. There will be no more complicated software or jargon, just a website that is tailored to your company’s needs. Best of all, Opasite manages and maintains your website, allowing you to request unlimited content changes without having to lift a finger (or learn another web design tool).
Tips for Writing Effective Content for Your Website
Effective website content is important because it helps you build trust, develop relationships, improve conversions, and generate leads by enticing your audience and answering their questions before they ask. Visitors expect your website to provide high-quality, clear, and articulate content in today’s modern digital world.
In addition to writing quality content for your potential customers, search engines also value both the quality and depth of your content along with your content’s ability to be highly relevant to your audience’s searches. Not only can you achieve great search engine results with some targeted keywords and landing pages for your audience, but if you like to write, starting a blog may be perfect for you and your business’s success online. A blog on your business website can bring in lots of search traffic and be a flywheel of new highly qualified visitors to your site. A key to maintaining a good blog is the consistent quantity and quality content. It’s best to make a plan on how you’ll publish high-quality articles and/or blog posts on your own site as well as on sites that link to yours (guest articles). You must update your website with new and relevant content as frequently as possible if you want to rank highly in search engine results and encourage people to visit your site again and again.
In addition to static page content and articles, testimonials are a great type of content to include on your website. Requesting customer testimonials and then publishing them on your website is a great way to add new, high-quality content to your website that will help your small business stand out.
The most important thing to consider when sitting down to write your website’s content is to make sure your content is written in the right style and tone for your target audience. When writing content, you should have a persona in mind of who is going to read your content. Base the tone of your content (humorous, strictly business, or maybe somewhere in the middle) on who you envision reading it, whoever your target customer is. This applies to all of the content you deliver, including website content, social media posts, emails, and any other formats. Always keep your target audience top of mind.
You’re Ready to Start Your Website
You did it, you’ve reached the end of the article! With the knowledge and guidance you’ve received today, you’re already well on your way to a fantastic small business website for your services company. Go ahead and bookmark this article so you can come back to reference it anytime you need to during the website creation process.
Remember if you get stuck at any part of your website-building journey, reach out to us at Opasite to see how we can help speed things along and get your business online in less than 7 days. If you’re interested in chatting with us now, find a time that works for you here: Schedule a Chat.
