Creating a website is one of the fastest ways to boost your small business. A sleek, modern website will help you find new customers, improve your user experience, and generate sales through an online store.
How to Create a Website Using a Website Builder in 9 Steps
Before you start building your website, define some goals. What do you hope to achieve by creating a website? Having a vision for your site will help you choose the features to work on first.
Common business website functionalities include: selling physical or digital products, selling services, publishing information about your company, expressing your brand, sharing updates and announcements in a blog, showcasing customer reviews, converting site visitors into customers, and growing your audience.
Once you have identified your goals, you can create a plan for how to achieve them. If your goal is to sell physical products, for example, think about how to organize your inventory, promote products, and process payments.
Creating a website is an ongoing task that never ends. Therefore, having specific goals followed by detailed plans broken into tasks will help you build with purpose.
Choosing a Website Builder
The quickest way to create a business website is by using a website builder. Website builders are tools for designing web pages and adding features. They use drag-and-drop interfaces so you can design without coding knowledge.
Top website builder software includes: templates and themes to speed up creation, customization options, a content library with images and videos, drag-and-drop design tools, SEO and marketing tools for your site, and AI content generation tools.
Over time, you may want to upgrade your basic site with custom features. This may require modifying your site’s HTML and CSS files. The best website builders should allow you to edit and control your code if needed.
You can use the Shopify website builder to create all types of sites, not just online stores. When building a site on Shopify, you’ll gain access to customizable, mobile-responsive themes and 24/7 live support to help you design your site as you wish.
When you’re ready to start selling or promoting your content, Shopify has everything you need to reach your audience (without third parties).
You can accept payments, collect customer information, and receive mailing communications automatically within the platform. Build your site with a 3-day free trial on Shopify.
Try Shopify before committing to a paid plan. Then get three months for just $1 per month. Enter your email address to start the free trial.
What are some other website builders besides Shopify?
In addition to Shopify, popular website and e-commerce platforms include Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress.
Each platform offers different benefits, so consider your site goals and which features will be most beneficial. Compare ease of use, design options, customization capabilities, pricing, and customer support.
Other editors that use drag-and-drop interfaces include Weebly, 3dcart, Volusion, and GoDaddy.
Choosing a Web Host
Every website is hosted on a server. Web hosts provide space on their servers for your site and all associated data.
Choosing a hosting provider can be challenging as each hosting company offers different payment plans with varying bandwidth limits, email accounts, and storage. Additionally, when selecting a host, you’re unsure of how quickly you’ll grow or what services you’ll need in the future.
If you’re creating an online store, look for e-commerce hosts that offer: unlimited bandwidth, so you won’t be charged for site traffic as you grow, compliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards to keep customer data safe and secure, fast servers so customers can load your site quickly no matter where they are, unlimited email forwarding to save time and help your business look professional, and your own domain to quickly set up and register a domain name for your site.
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Every Shopify plan comes with fast and reliable web hosting, including domain names and unlimited email forwarding, along with broad domain coverage. Shopify’s servers are located all around the world, allowing users to load your site quickly, regardless of their location.
Choosing a Domain Name
A domain name is the address of your digital website – it’s how people find you online. A domain name lends credibility to your business, and when chosen carefully, it helps your site rank higher in search results for keywords related to your industry.
When choosing a domain name: keep it short and brandable, choose a top-level domain (TLD) if possible, look at country-specific domains (like .ca and .co.uk), and include keywords related to your site.
How to register your domain name: Domain names are stored on the Domain Name System (DNS), a global storage system. You’ll need to check if your business name or the site name you’ve chosen is available as a domain.
You can check the availability of your domain name with any hosting provider. Here’s the Shopify domain name search tool.
If it’s available, you can register for the domain using a hosting service like Shopify, Google Domains, or GoDaddy. Since domain names are global, every provider offers the same set of names.
If your business name is already in use, be creative and choose a domain that reflects your brand. For example, Biko, an online fashion retailer, uses the domain ilovebiko.com. It’s catchy and clear, putting customers in the right mindset upon arrival.
Other options when your preferred domain is taken include adding a suffix (for example, storenameonline.com, storenamecanada.com) or using a different extension (for example, storename.shop, storename.ca). Just remember: changing domain names after your site is up and running can lead to SEO issues, so choose wisely.
Choosing the Design
With hosting and a domain name, your website is ready to build. The first stage of designing the site is finding the right design and theme for your content and brand.
A website builder is likely to offer free and paid themes that you can install. Most themes are designed for specific use cases, such as blog sites or online store themes.
The alignment between your site’s theme and its content doesn’t have to be perfect – you can edit colors and elements later. However, try to find a broad match when considering factors like your branding, industry, and the size of your product catalog.
The Shopify Theme Store has over 100 free and paid themes, each with unique styles and features. You can choose from themes created by renowned global designers, including Happy Cog, Clearleft, and Pixel Union.
Every Shopify theme is customizable and easy to use, allowing you to preview your store while working on it.
Adding Relevant Pages
A relevant page on a website means different things depending on the type of business you operate.
Product and collection pages are essential if you run an e-commerce site. You’ll need landing pages for a menu and reservations if you own a restaurant. Real estate professionals are likely to add a page to showcase their listings and a form to collect contact information. Create an SEO content plan to rank your pages.
Regardless of the pages and posts you add to your site, keep the content relevant to your industry and niche. This begins the process of building authority within your area of expertise. As you load content and visitors engage with your site, Google will index your pages in its directory.
You can enhance your content by aligning it with popular search terms and keywords. Research relevant keywords for your site using a keyword planner tool.
Connecting
Electronic Payment System
Many businesses build websites to conduct sales. To achieve this goal, it should be easy for visitors to purchase products from your site. Whether you are doing direct shipping or selling your own products, a smooth payment system is essential.
Fortunately, current website builders often come with built-in payment processing systems or e-commerce plugins that you can use to accept customer payments.
All Shopify plans include Shopify payment processing, which allows website owners to accept credit cards – without third-party applications. You can also offer fast payment options like Shop Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal, or allow customers to pay in installments with Afterpay.
Add Business Tools
The Shopify App Store has over 8000 add-ons designed to expand the capabilities of Shopify sites. These third-party apps can connect your site to social media and external sales channels, improve your content quality and page designs, and streamline shipping and fulfillment processes.
Many other website building platforms have similar libraries of apps and integrations. You can find free Shopify apps to help with: building a marketing email list, finding popular products to sell online, running Facebook ads, creating pop-ups for lead generation, providing live chat support, building loyalty programs, integrating with online selling sites, adding extra payment gateways to your shopping cart, understanding Google Analytics data.
These tools can open new business opportunities for your site, improving your customer experience and boosting sales. It all depends on finding the right apps and pricing for your business needs.
Preview, Test, and Launch Your Site
Creating a website for your business is the first step in establishing an online presence. Rigorously test your site to ensure content loads correctly and all links work properly. Conduct a quick user experience check to make sure your products and services are presented the way you want.
Send your site to coworkers, friends, and family to ensure it loads quickly and correctly across different devices and internet connections.
Do a final check to ensure everything is okay. By following this step-by-step guide, your new site should be ready to go online!
What Next After Building Your Business Website?
Your website is not a static asset; it requires regular maintenance and development. Updates, new projects, and expanded content will help keep your site fresh and competitive.
Once you have the basic elements of your site set up, you can develop custom features or target specific visitors.
If you’ve created a Shopify store and are ready to dive into profit, read about how to get your first sale in 30 days.
How to Create a Free Website Using Shopify
If you want to create a site to sell products or promote your brand, you can get started right away with the Shopify website builder.
Set up your site with a three-day free trial on Shopify. After that, continue building your site for $1 per month for the first three months.
Shopify specializes in e-commerce, so in addition to its site builder, there are other features to help you grow your online store or physical shop.
Here’s how to get started:
1. Create Your Shopify Account
Go to Shopify and start your free trial. You will need an email address and a basic idea of why you want to build your site. If needed, you can create a custom domain later. Shopify allows you to change some initial settings as you work on the site-building process.
2.
Add Basic Information for the Site
Once you’re in the store builder, you’ll see a list on the left containing links to various tools and features. Click on Settings to customize your site’s name, time zone, and currency – or follow the setup guide to start adding content to your site. Use Shopify’s step-by-step guide to set up your store.
3. Choose Your Site Theme
Go straight to adding products to your store, or set your site theme by clicking on Customize Theme. All themes come with Shopify’s industry-leading checkout process. By default, Shopify provides a theme for your store.
If you want a different look, click on Online Store in the left sidebar and explore the free themes. Select a popular free theme from the site builder. You can also head to the theme store for professionally designed paid themes. Pay attention to details and read reviews to find the right theme for your store.
4. Customize Your Theme
Once you’ve selected a theme, you may want to make some basic changes to the color scheme or choose the font. To do this, click on Customize after selecting a theme and use the menu tools to edit page sections or theme settings. Here, you can also set your site logo, layout, and other features.
5. Add Pages and Content
Stay in the live builder or return to the setup guide to add pages, content, and a navigation menu to your site. Create content for the “About Us” and “Contact Us” sections. Try publishing a blog post to share more personal or complex information.
6. Add Products
Once your store design is ready, click on the Products button in the menu and start filling in your product information. Follow the process to add titles, descriptions, prices, images, and videos. Organize products by creating collections and categories.
7. Add a Payment Method
Before customers can use your checkout, you’ll need to add a payment provider to your site. In the settings or setup guide, go to Payments and activate Shopify Payments, PayPal, or another payment provider.
If you chose Shopify Payments, it will be automatically set up to accept all major payment methods.
Complete Your Store – Then Keep Building!
Make a test order to ensure everything works, then choose a plan to fully launch your site. Once you feel more comfortable with the store builder, dive into shipping, marketing, analytics, and other essential site features using the setup menu.
What’s Next After Building Your Business Website?
Your website is not a static asset; it requires maintenance and regular evolution. Updates, new projects and features, and expanded content will help keep your site current and competitive.
Once you’ve created the basic elements of your site, you can develop custom features or target specific visitors.
If you’ve created a Shopify store and are ready to explore profit, read about how to get your first sale in 30 days.
Frequently Asked Questions About Building a Website
Can I create a free website?
You can create a basic free website using many website builder platforms, including WordPress, Wix, and Weebly. To use your own domain name and access features like e-commerce templates, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Do I need to own a domain name to create a website?
You do not need to own a domain name to create a website. Shopify and other website builder platforms provide free hosting addresses (usually in the format: yourname.hostingcompany.com). If you want to purchase and use your own domain name, it’s easy to transfer your site to the new address.
How can I get a domain for my site?
You can purchase a domain from a domain registrar. Most web hosting services also allow you to buy a domain along with cheaper web hosting packages. The cost of most domains is around $30 per year, although the prices of domain names can vary significantly based on demand.
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