Shall I create or buy a website for my business?
In recent years, the internet has become a major influence on people’s buying decisions and custom habits. Websites became effective marketing and promotion tools for start-up and established businesses alike; for a good website requires little maintenance, yet operates 24/7 and reaches more people than a static (non-moving) local high-street shop.
A website with a good design can help you win and connect with both new, as well as existing customers; while generating additional revenue. And because of lower marketing and selling expenses, profit margins on online sales can be significantly higher.
If the nature of your business does not let you sell online, a well-designed regularly maintained website still can provide added credibility; it can also create free online advertising and business promotion opportunities. That's your chance to make a first connection with your possible future customer, who can quickly become your most trusted brand ambassador if you handle things correctly. So the answer is: Yes, you should create or buy a website.
Here's the good news: getting a website up and running does not need to be expensive or difficult at all but it will surely become time-consuming if you'd like everything free.
Building your own website can save a lot of money, or you think!, but the results might not be what you expected and having a horrible design or a dead website is worse than having none at all.
How to create a website? - The Basics
There are so many things to learn about websites and online marketing, not everything will fit into one lengthy blog post. Let's not jump right into the water without checking its temperature first!
We are not going to show you right now how to build a website in 30 minutes using WordPress, Joomla, Wix or other CMS platforms. Instead, we go through a list of basic notions such as domain-name, web-hosting, website, internet, email; as well as the type of business you have and with what services you are helping your customers currently.
Internet, Web, Browsers and Websites
First, you need to learn the very basics. What is a website? Where is it stored? What is the Internet? And how can a business get online?
The internet is basically a large set of computers connected through wired or wireless networks. It is the network of all computer networks.
The World Wide Web or (the Web or www) only refers to the part of this huge network which is accessible by the public.
The Web contains information and data (various codes) that your Browsers such as Mozilla FireFox, Internet Explorer, Safari or Google Chrome can read and display on your monitor or device.
These data, all the HTML, images and various instructions to your browser or to search engines are stored on huge servers, which serve the Web and are accessible by everyone.
The collection of all these data makes up your website and the process of storing these data on a publicly accessible server is called web hosting.
Web Hosting
Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server owned or leased for use by clients, as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data centre.
Wikipedia.org
It is advisable to choose a local server, which means local to your customers; so they will access data faster. Your clients' distance and yours from your hosting server play an important role in data-transfer speed.
However as for GA Repair, we have chosen a flexible and an easiest-to-manage option: Wix.com
We would love them to have a server based in the UK, but they do not have one yet.
As for maintenance, promotion and marketing they offer useful free and paid mini applications on the Wix App Market;
As for design it is very straight-forward, you can manage your website visually. Absolutely almost anyone can do it and you can even optimise your website for search engines. The Wix Support and Forum helps you get started and going-on with easy to follow steps and manageable clear instructions.
Creating a website is free here, but connecting your domain is not possible unless you purchase a basic premium package.
If you are a business owner, like us, and you'd also like to sell on the internet in an online shop, you can purchase various Wix Premium packages which suit your individual needs and requirements.
If you are a blogger in the UK, choose a blogger website. Blogspot.com and WordPress.com are more for You. They will completely satisfy your blogging needs. However, if you intend to advertise your posts with links on social media fan pages (of course you will do this) it is important to buy your domain name prior to your first posts. Why?
Because if you are using Google+ or Facebook Comments, changing the blog URL will negatively impact upon existing comments.
Domains / Domain Names
While your website data is hosted on a public server, it gets indexed and anyone who knows where you data is stored can see your website. Domain names are like postcodes for websites, so they can be found under a specific address, under a name which is easy to remember and related to your business activities.
When you choose your domain name, make sure they are tightly linked with your business or services and check what similar domains are already taken. You'd like to be as unique as possible.
We, at GA Repair, have bought our domains separately. They were not included in any web-hosting packages. We wanted to be as flexible as possible. You can also check what domain names are available to you, click here.
Andras has decided to go for www.GArepairservices.co.uk
Domain prices vary. You should choose a domain which ends with .co.uk if you are in London, like us. Use hyphens -, if necessary, to make your domain easier on the eye.
Look at the difference: garepairlondonblog.co.uk or garepair-london-blog.co.uk
Apart from helping your customers to read your domains easier, Google will also look for key-words in your domain name.
Recently, it has also become really fashionable to choose a more unique ending like ga-repair.london or ga-repair.website
You can choose similar domains here.
Lots of web-hosting packages are there on the Internet. Each will offer you various deals. However, in this rapidly growing online social scene, it is completely enough if you have a free Google Mail or Yahoo Mail address. We suggest Google mail, but that's only personal preference. Make sure your Gmail address also relays your business image. Choose a suitable account name.
Many spamming, so-called online marketing businesses, are out there, who use Google and Yahoo mail accounts to fish for new customers by sending them unsolicited spam-like email messages about getting them on the first page of Google with "white-label" optimisation techniques, which would totally exclude black-hat spam email marketing; such as the emails they keep sending.
If you choose to create and use a free email account for your business, make sure your email address has credibility, too. Our email is repairservicesGA@gmail.com, which describes the services, GA Andras Gergely, IT network engineer provides: repair services.
Your Business, your Services & your Customers
Are you ready? Now you partly know the basic notions of online marketing and website building. You can think about getting your new domain, creating a free email account and start designing your very own website visually on wix.com, wordpress.com or blogspot.com
You must keep in mind that your are creating something personal for your customers, yet your website design should also relay your public brand image, your best qualities and your business personality.
But how will you design your website? What will you integrate into it?
What will your useful and informative content be?
How will you optimise your website's look or your headings and texts?
What are your next steps?
These are the questions we are going to discuss next Wednesday in our blog. Keep coming back every Wednesday and search for the tag #smallbiz on GA's Blog. We, at GA Repair London, will show you how to optimise your website and get your business online. / #smallbiz Wednesdays /
We can support you with individually-tailored suggestions if you tell us more about your business and your services in the comments. Just let us know how you are getting on with choosing your domain name, web hosting packages or free / paid email addresses.
By the way, if you think we could improve our website or GA's Blog in any way, let us know.
We really do appreciate any help and comments.
We also hope it does not mean that our mailbox will be full of spamming online marketers, who would like to get our website online in no time with white-label marketing solutions for under £60!
This post is the part of #GAsocialmediaproject and #londonbizparty project. Search for the hashtags to get to know more.
Check out the GA Social Media Project
We can help you more effectively,
if you get in touch and comment on this post.
Advice is free and it can save you time and money.
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