Beginners Guide for a Small Business Website.

Getting a Web Presence for beginners.

If you have a business of any kind you will need a website. I see many business around here in Tulsa that still don’t have a website. Especially true with small businesses. I will often visit a website for a small business  and the site is not updated or has very little content to offer. If your don’t have a decent website for your business you are many years behind the times and your competition is already way ahead of you.

This article is to help you small business guys or to get a online presence cheap! You can also do it for free but I recommend putting just a little money into it to be more professional. Your customers will appreciate it.

If your new to web publishing... Or any Internet/computer work then there WILL be a learning curve. Hopefully this article will help the curve to not be so steep and to keep you from getting discouraged. It’s not near as bad (or expensive) as you might think.

Are ya ready?

Buy a Domain - Godaddy.com is the biggest domain registry that is out there... When shopping for one try to make one that’s easy to remember and not too long...Also include the “keywords” for Google to help find and index you easily... EX:  www.tulsa-burgerbarn.com  See the keywords? (Tulsa, Burger)

Get Hosting - Hosting has become considerably cheaper these days. When I first started designing  web sites the cheapest I found was about $15.00 a month. You can find it easily these days for 1/2 that much. There are TONS of hosts out there. When shopping for a host go with one that has a decent reputation. Do a google search for “web hosting reviews”  You can contact me too and I’ll give you a recommendation.

Install WordPress - After you get hosting set up the chances are the host will support this software. It should be a painless 1 or 2 click installation. When I first started doing websites you had to know some html and know how to interact with servers to get your pages up... Now with wordpress you just install it, create pages and post new stuff to keep it fresh.

Choose a Theme - Wordpress has 1000’s of  free themes to choose from. Now you can install the theme right from wordpress when logged into the site. Remember, there will be a learning curve to doing this stuff... Press on.. You can have it done on a weekend if you persevere.

Start Writing - When I used to design websites for people I often found they wanted a site up..But had no idea on what they wanted to say... Websites are all about text. This is how you get found because the internet is simply text, images and animations. TEXT is king. You well need to create some pages in wordpress and write about your business. The more the better.

Add Images - When writing about what you have to offer make sure to add a image here and there for some eye candy. You don’t need a bunch of flashy cartoon stuff... What you need is text to tell your customers what you offer and how you do it better than the competition.

Update Often - Wordpress is “blogging” software that is complete with everything you need. To post something a few times a week for the blog is good to keep customers coming back to hear about your ideas for growth and “specials”  It’s not enough just to have a couple of pages up...All successful buisnesses also have a blog. So keep on writing.

There ya have it.... Hope that was as good for you as it was for me :)  Internet text is my passion..Can ya tell?