You have a new home business, now what? Well, you need to sit down and start to develop your website. Now, if you have no experience with this, it may seem like a feat that is not to be accomplished. Honestly, you can do this. I developed and published my first website with no online experience and ended up liking the process. Doing it yourself will give you a great sense of accomplishment.
Of course, if you have the funds, you can pay someone to do it for you. Would you rather invest that large chunk of money into marketing your website? First thing you want to do is think about how much you want to spend monthly on your website. You can have a plain, no bells and whistles site or you can have the whole package. Personally, my first website is a “plain Jane” website.
Now, you want to name your site. Think of a catchy name that people will be drawn to. You want to make sure it will not be too complicated for people to remember. You can use hyphens and underscores in your name but try it out for yourself to see if it flows nice for you. Also take into consideration a title that corresponds with what you are selling. You don’t want to name your website “the jewelry lady” if you are selling candles. Another thing to remember is keep the name general if you plan to sell or promote more than one product. When you choose your domain name, check to see if it is available. I use www.Godaddy.com to purchase my website domain names. They are also budget friendly and offer hosting and website packages.
Now that we have decided on a domain name, its time to investigate host servers. There are many host servers out there and many of them are reliable and budget friendly so you will have to pick the company that you feel comfortable with. Personally, I used www.simple-web-site.com for my first site. It is user friendly and works with my budget. Remember, I had no experience with starting up a website so this site allowed me to learn as I go. As I said earlier, you can also use www.Godaddy.com to build your website. Personally for me it was not as easy to use. Now if your have money budgeted for your website, the best website builder is www.sitebuildit.com
This site offers you many things to help build and market a high ranking website. One drawback it the fact that you have to pay by the year. I personally use them and have started the process of developing my second website through them.
Now, if you don’t have the funds pay for host server. There are still options out there for you. I have used a great FREE site called www.freewebs.com
Another site is www.weebly.com Both are simple to use and make a nice plain website which is great for starting out.
We have covered a lot of information here but my advice is to take your time and check out all of your options. Ask advice of others in your business. They have been in your shoes so they can be your best source of information on what works best in your business. Take your time and don’t rush the process because “Rome wasn’t built in a day” so to speak. With time you will build and publish a great website and feel that great sense of accomplishment.
