How to Create a Website: 8 Essential Steps

If you’re starting your business, one of the first steps is creating your own website. 

Thankfully, there are a number of tools that make website building a breeze. 

Learn why having your own small business website is so important and the eight steps you need to know to create your own website.

We promise, it’s easy to do on your own (and with the help of Durable!).

Why You Need a Website for Your Small Business

A website is an absolute must-have for every business these days — no matter how big or small.

Here are three key reasons why you need a website for your small business.

Provide Info About Your Business

A website provides you with a space to share any and all important information about your business with your potential customers. Talk about what your business offers, share the story behind your business, detail your products or services, and more.

Having an online home base like a website is the perfect way to provide info that any of your potential customers would need to know before they decide to work with you.  

Boost Credibility

The first thing almost anyone does when learning about something new is a Google search. If your business website isn’t appearing, people are going to think your business doesn’t actually exist — or worse, is a scam.

You need a website to show that you exist, that you’re really offering the products and services you say you are, and that you have a clear way to learn more and get in touch.

Increase Sales and Conversions

A website also provides a place for you to sell your products and services which helps boost sales and conversions. You can grow your business even faster than if you took everything fully offline. 

You can also add a shop, contact form, and more to your website that makes it easier to gain new customers.

Now let’s talk about building your own small business website. 

Here are the eight essential steps:

1. Decide What Type of Website You Need
2. Select the Right Website Builder
3. Select Your Domain
4. Build Your Website
5. Customize Your Website
6. Optimize Your Website
7. Review And Publish
8. Establish Website Maintenance

Step #1: Decide What Type of Website You Need

First, you need to decide what type of website you need. 

Here are some website types:

• Portfolio: You want to showcase your work, perfect for agencies and freelancers.
• Blog/news/online publication: You want to write about a specific topic.
• E-commerce: You want to sell products.
• Single page: You want a single-page informational website.
• Multi-page: You want a multi-page website to share more details and information.
• Forum: You want to build an online community.

Step #2: Select the Right Website Builder

Next, select your website builder. 

Some of the website builders you can choose from are:

• Full website builders: Durable, Wix, Squarespace, WordPress
• E-commerce website builders: Shopify, BigCommerce, Etsy
• Portfolio website builders: Contently, Canva, Behance, Dribbble

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use website builder that can help get your small business website up and running quickly, we recommend Durable. 

Durable’s AI website builder builds a website for you in 30 seconds. 

Get access to hosting, analytics, stock imagery, SEO, website security, and so much more when you use Durable to build your website.

Step #3: Select Your Domain

Once you’ve selected your website builder, it’s time to choose your domain name. Best case scenario, you use your business name.

For example, if your business is called “Puppy Rescue,” the best domain name would be puppyrescue.com. If you’re realizing that your business name is rather popular, you have a few options:

• Add your location to the end, like puppyrescuechs.com for a Puppy Rescue located in Charleston, SC.
• Choose a different domain extension, like puppyrescue.co or puppyrescue.love (there are hundreds of unique options, but a basic one is best).
• Change your business name (you can use Durable’s Business Name Generator) to one with an available domain if you haven’t filed your business paperwork yet.

Step #4: Build Your Website

Now for the fun part — building your website! Many business owners gripe on website building as a long and tedious process, but with Durable, it doesn’t have to be.

Instead of sifting through hundreds or even thousands of website templates or themes, Durable’s AI website builder makes it easy, allowing you to build a website in five simple steps:

• Describe your website so the AI builder can get to work.
• Customize the AI-generated design to perfectly fit your needs and vision.
• Add content (i.e., additional copy, images, videos) to your website to make sure your visitors get all the key info they need about your business.
• Test your website to make sure all your pages and elements work.
• Publish your website so you can start sharing it with the world.

Don’t let the website design process keep you from launching your business now. 

With Durable, you can start and finish your website the same day you start your new business.

Step #5: Customize Your Website

Let’s talk more about website customization.

Durable’s AI is smart, but it still needs your final touch to make sure it’s perfectly matching your branding and your overall vision.

First things first, you need to make sure your website matches your brand. By having a properly branded website, you’re reassuring your website visitors that this site belongs to your business. It should have your logo and match your brand fonts and colors.

If you’re looking for a new brand — or you want to upgrade your branding — give Durable’s Brand Builder a try. Generate a logo, fonts, and colors, and easily apply your branding to your Durable website.

Durable can write all of your website copy for you based on how you describe your business. But don’t worry, you can make any and all copy changes you want. You can also add or remove landing pages that you do or don’t want to see on your website. 

Landing pages can help you:

• Further explain your services
• Be a great addition for SEO
• Create even more sales pages

Finally, add any content, like videos, images, or anything else you may have on file, that helps to further showcase your team, products, services, and more.

Step #6: Optimize Your Website for SEO and Mobile

Your next step is to fully optimize your website for SEO and mobile responsiveness. If you use Durable to create your website, we make this easy for you!

First of all, your website is automatically mobile-responsive — you just need to make sure your images, fonts, and other assets are easy to view on a smaller screen.

As for SEO, you can easily input things like:

• Meta titles
• Meta descriptions
• Focus keywords
• Alt tags

This helps Google and other search engines gain a better understanding of exactly what your website is about. Ensure you use these fields for each of your landing pages to fully optimize your site.

Step #7: Review and Publish

Finished customizing and optimizing your website? It’s time for one final review. 

Your review should consist of:

• Proofreading copy
• Ensuring accuracy across the website
• Confirming your navigation works
• Ensuring all links and buttons work
• Making sure the pages look the same on desktop and mobile
• Getting a second pair of eyes to double check the copy and design

Use Durable’s preview feature to see what your website will look like once published. Once everything is checked, publish and promote your new site.

Step #8: Establish Website Maintenance

Finally, make sure you have a regular website maintenance plan so you can find and fix any potential issues that arise, as well as keep up with SEO and any changes to your business and its offerings.

This plan should include:

• Updating your website content so it’s fully accurate
• Monitoring your website traffic and other analytics to ensure growth
• Keeping your website backed up in case of any issues
• Ensuring your website is fully secure
• Finding and fixing broken links
• Adding new pages when you have more information to share
• Updating your company blog with new content

Maintaining your website is important to keep it running properly. A website isn’t a “set it and forget it” type deal. Make sure it remains up-to-date, especially because an updated website is a major factor in ranking well through SEO.

Create Your Own Website With Durable

Get your new small business website up and running — today. 

With Durable’s easy-to-use AI website builder, you can create a website in 30 seconds.