Even though there are a lot of people that think they can get away with running their business with a social media page or pages, it has literally never been more important for you to have your own website as a small business owner.
You know... you can't control the algorithms on social media. If you've been paying attention, you've likely noticed that your reach on these platforms has slowly diminished over time.
And it's only going to get worse moving forward, as more people are realizing the potential for small business marketing on these platforms.
Look - you don't own these platforms, so there's also the potential for you to lose all your hard work if they decide to delete your account.
That's why every small business needs a website.
It's important to have a place where your customers can always find you, so even if all of social media disappears tomorrow, your business is safe.
What is the best website for a small business?
The best website for your small businesses is any website that you have complete control over. You'll need a website that you can host yourself through a website hosting platform.
There are tons of these platforms online. Just search "self hosted website" on Google and you'll find thousands of providers willing to host your site.
But be careful here - because lots of hosting services start out really cheap, but then when your contract renews they'll charge much more for your second year of service. It's not uncommon to start out at $3 a month, but then have to pay more than $20 a month later on.
On the other extreme, you don't want to have website anywhere where you don't have to pay for hosting. For example, on a website like Medium. Because ultimately they're control all of the content you put on their site.
Remember - If you don't pay for hosting, you won't own your website or any of the content on it.
How do you build a website for your small business?
You'll either have to hire a website developer, or use a website builder to create a website for your business. Both of these options have pros and cons.
If you hire a website developer, you'll probably end up spending a lot of money on your site. And that's fine if you have the budget for it, but most small businesses don't have $20,000 to spend on website development when they're first starting out.
You could hire a less expensive website developer, but most of the cheaper options will use website builders to build out their client's websites. Plus you'll end up paying maintenance fees whenever you want to add or change something on your site.
Instead of going down that route, I recommend you use a website builder to create your own site. It could save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in freelancer fees.
And if you build your own site with a website builder instead of hiring someone to do it, you'll also be able to change and update it yourself... which can be very valuable in the longterm.
What is the best small business website builder?
I've personally tried several website builders. I've hosted my own business websites on Wix, Wordpress with Divi, and a few others I can't remember.
I've hated all of them. Despite their marketing claims... None of them were user friendly, plus hosting was usually very expensive.
The only website builder I've personally had any success with is Ghost. I recommend Ghost to all of the small businesses I work with, especially since you can get lifetime hosting at Magic Pages for $120.
Here's the link if you're interested.
Magic Pages 2-Week Free Trial
Get Lifetime Hosting for your Ghost Site starting at $120
I love using Ghost because it is incredibly easy to get started. You just pick a theme, and start writing. I swear it's easier to navigate than social media, and it's faster and more secure than Wordpress.
Plus it has tons of tools that are integrated directly into the builder, like subscriptions and newsletters. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. It's taken care of for you.
Try it out, and then tell me how much you love it.
What should a small business website contain?
There are several sections you'll need to create when you launch your business's website. These are essential. As your business grows, you can add more later. But it's important to have these four things before you launch your site.
1 - Homepage
You'll need a homepage to greet the visitors coming to your website. You don't much here, and I actually found most of the homepages on website builders to be overwhelming.
Just make sure to tell people who you are, what you do, and give them a next step to take. Maybe you want them to visit a landing page or read your blog? You've got to tell them what to do, and why they they should do it.
2 - About Page
Your about page should tell your story as it relates to your customers. Make sure to keep it interesting and relevant. Add a call-to-action somewhere in the page. A good one might be to ask people to join your newsletter.
Remember - at the end of the day, no one wants to listen to your life story.
Most people want to know how your personal experiences are likely to help them, so write about that.
3 - Blog
If you want people to eventually be able to find your website, it's a smart idea to create a blog to go along with it. Your blog will bring people in from Google and other search engines, and then you can convert those leads into paying customers.
It might take a while to get traffic to your site, but it will be well worth the effort once your site is established.
4 - Legal Pages
I know it's temping, but don't skip the legal pages. You'll need a privacy policy, terms and conditions, disclaimer, and disclosure pages.
You might do fine without these pages, but there is always the possibility that your business could get sued without them. Make sure to add them as soon as possible.
How much does a business website cost to build?
This 100% depends on you. You can spend tens of thousand of dollars creating your businesses website, or you can host your website at home on your own server for free.
Ideally, you want to build a website that fits within your budget. Most small businesses should spend 10% of their revenue on marketing and advertising. So if your business is making a million dollars a year, you can hire a website developer with all of the bells and whistles.
But if you're not making any money yet, or less than $100,000 a year... You'll probably want to build your site for next to nothing. That way you can spend your advertising budget on things that have a better ROI.
Can you make a website for free?
Absolutely, you can create a website using Ghost for free if you are hosting using your own server. Ghost is 100% free to use because it's an open-source software.
But if you don't have your own server, then you're going to have to pay for hosting. I recommend using Magic Pages. It's what I use to host this site, and I've been really satisfied with it.
It's really fast, and I have unlimited everything except for newsletters. I can send 10,000 newsletters per month before I have to pay extra. It's more than enough for most small businesses.
If you go with Magic Pages, I recommend the lifetime hosting. You can get their basic option for $120, or the higher tier for $350. Personally, I used PayPay to buy my lifetime hosting and separated the payments on this site. It's very affordable if you do it that way.
Of course, $120 for lifetime hosting isn't free. But it's pretty close if you ask me.
I put the link above if you want to try out their service. You can get a 2-week free trial if you want to see if Ghost is right for you. I think you'll love it as much as I do.
Once you have a webpage - You should probably spend the rest of your marketing budget HERE.
Ok... so let's pretend you have an extremely small business, or you're a freelancer making $60,000 per year.
You should probably be spending $6,000 a year marketing your business. You've spent $120 on your website, how do you spend the other $5,800 of your marketing budget.
Well, I'd spend half of it or $2,400 a year for someone to manage your blog. And then I'd spend the rest of it on a marketing strategist.
Here's how I would break it down.
First - Your blog needs love.
Right now, your blog is probably one of your most important assets. You need high quality blog posts to stand out from your competition.
It might be a good idea at this point to pay someone to write your blog posts for you. You could probably spend half of your marketing budget here.
Then you should focus on social media.
Be aware that it could take a while before your blog starts to bring in any significant traffic. So before it does, you'll probably have to get all of your traffic from social media.
If you have money in your budget, hire an experienced ghostwriter to write your posts for you. But if you can't hire a ghostwriter, you can probably write the social media posts yourself. Make sure you're posting several times a week.
Finally, hire a marketing strategist.
After you've paid for a good blog writer, and a ghostwriter for your socials... the next step is for you to hire a marketing strategist. Someone that you can trust to push you in the right direction.
You can hire a good one for around $250 per session, so if you're making $60,000 a year; meet up with your strategist once a month to make sure everything is running smoothly.
I hope this has been really helpful for you guys. I had a lot of fun writing this.
Remember - if you need someone to help you with any aspect of this, shoot me an email at diana@rainmakersunited.com.
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