Are you looking for a way to build your small business website with WordPress? Want to sell your products online from your own website?
Almost every successful business has an online presence. In fact, having a business website has become increasingly important. Over 87% of shoppers now begin their product search online.
If you’re looking for the best way to move your business online, building a Small Business Website is a good place to start.
This way, you can control your brand image and present a professional impression rather than relying on social media alone.
Fortunately, building a small business website is quite straightforward. Thanks to WordPress, you can now build a fully-featured small business website or eCommerce store on your own, without paying a developer.
You can also start small and scale up as your business grows.
This is why WordPress has now become the go-to platform for building superb websites!
In this article, we’ll explain why building a small business website for your small business makes perfect sense. We’ll also include information on setting up an eCommerce store in case you want to sell online too.
Then, we’ll show you how to go about it step by step.
Let’s get into it!
Table of Contents
Why Is Your Small Business Website Needed?
You may have a business for a while and have achieved significant success even without a website. So, you may be wondering why you need one now.
Even if your business is doing well without a website, the better question to ask might be, how much better it could be with a website.
For starters, the majority of your customers expect you to have a website. It not only makes your business look professional but also helps you deliver a strong brand message.
Here’s a quick shortlist of the top benefits of building a small business website for your brand:
- A website can attract more new customers and better ROI. We’ve already established that more people make online purchases (especially through Google). A website that works 24/7 will help you capture market share even outside office hours.
- A good website gives your brand credibility and social proof. Fewer consumers now trust businesses without a website. A business site with testimonials and reviews offers a great avenue to stand out from the crowd.
- You get to showcase your products and services the way you want. With your own website, you can use high-quality visuals to promote your work and publish important information.
- You can sell your products easily using free tools. Widen your customer base and sell automatically 24/7. Thanks to WordPress and WooCommerce, any small business owner can set up their own online store.
- Answer key consumer questions. You can embed Google Maps to help customers find you faster or even create knowledge-base articles to answer the most common customer queries on your small business website.
Is WordPress the Best Platform for Your Small Business Website?
The next thing to consider is the right platform for building your business website. Is WordPress the best option out there?
One of the most common reasons to develop a Small Business Website on WordPress is how easy it is to get started.
WordPress has been the most popular content management system (CMS) for many years. It powers 42% of the internet and you can build virtually any kind of website with it.
WordPress is the way to go if you’re looking for the most flexible, beginner-friendly way to build your small business website.
WordPress offers unlimited access to business-oriented features like custom themes, plugins, and Google Analytics.
It also enables your small business website to use WooCommerce, another free platform you can use in conjunction with WordPress to set up an eCommerce store as part of your website.
Now, let’s list a few reasons why WordPress is great for business websites:
- WordPress is completely free and open-source. You’ll need to pay for web hosting but being able to save on the CMS is a great deal. You can also make almost any changes to your site and even add some code if you like.
- WordPress is easy to use and has a user-friendly interface. You’ll find it very easy to use even if you’re new to building websites.
- You’ll join a large community of developers and users. You can easily get support and resolve almost any issue by simply searching Google.
- Access a wide variety of themes and plugins optimized for business. WordPress plugins and themes are a great way to add design features and other functionality to your site without writing a single line of code.
- Leverage the power of WooCommerce. WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress that provides the building blocks for eCommerce stores.
- It is SEO-friendly. With the best SEO practices, you can attract organic traffic to your website.
- It is secure and reliable. WordPress is one of the most secure web development software infrastructures around today.
- Easily scale up as your business grows. WordPress is infinitely scalable. WooCommerce is too if you run an online store. All you may need to change is your web hosting plan.
What You Need to Build a Superb Small Business Website
Building your business website begins with defining a specific purpose and message.
For example, your site can be targeted at maximizing conversions, brand awareness, or simply generating leads.
You can also sell your products online.
Maintaining a specific goal helps you to channel your efforts properly and analyze the results accurately.
Your audience must also be able to relate to your website content. Good content is helpful content—the foundation of every profitable website.
Once you’ve created a clear plan for maximizing your ROI, it’s time to invest in these website-building resources:
- Domain name: Costs from $4 on average. Choosing the right domain name is very important for driving traffic to your site.
- Web hosting: WordPress hosting prices vary greatly but usually start from £0.75 ($0.94) per month.
- SSL certificate: You need an SSL certificate to keep your WordPress site and its visitors’ information secure. The good news is that most web hosts include it in their hosting plans for free.
- WordPress themes and plugins: You’ll need these to add design features and other functionality to your Small Business Website. You’ll also need the WooCommerce plugin if you want to build a store as well as a business website.
It doesn’t cost much to build your first business website with WordPress. This is certainly a great reason to do it yourself considering how much the site can generate in the coming months and years!
The first step to building any type of small business website is to get web hosting. There are tons of WordPress hosts and it can be difficult to choose the right one.
Step 1: Buy Web Hosting and Install WordPress
Your first step when setting up any small business website is to secure web hosting and a domain name.
After choosing your hosting plan, it’s time to enter or create a domain name. The domain is the ‘www.domainname.com’ you enter into the URL bar of your browser.
We recommend putting as much thought as possible into your domain name as it forms a vital part of your online identity.
Once you have created your domain and paid for your web hosting, you’ll be taken to your account area. You can access your control panel from there.
Many web hosts use cPanel, which is a very common control panel. They also often use Softaculous, which is where you’ll install WordPress.
Once in cPanel, look for Software Installer.
Select WordPress and follow the setup wizard to install WordPress and configure your website. The wizard walks you through every step and should complete within a couple of minutes.
Now you have a WordPress site with default configuration settings. We told you it was easy!
Next, let’s design your website for your business the easy way.
Step 2: Set up WooCommerce
If you want to sell goods online, you’ll also need to install WooCommerce. This is an optional step so feel free to skip if you’re not ready to sell just yet.
WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that provides the foundations of an eCommerce store. It’s free and easy to set up and won’t take long.
Navigate to your WordPress dashboard and select Plugins > Add New.
Search for WooCommerce and select Install and Activate so you can use it with your website.
Once activated, you’ll see a WooCommerce setup wizard. Just like the one you used with WordPress, it will walk you through the process of setting up your store, setting the region, taxes and all the necessary details.
Once complete, you’ll just need to add your products and configure minor details.
If you need more information, the WooCommerce website has an excellent guide covering everything you need to know to set up a fully functioning online store.
Step 3: Customize Your Site Design With Astra
The fastest way to customize your WordPress site design is to use a WordPress theme. This method allows you to build a professional site in a few minutes without writing any code.
Choosing the right option from thousands of free and paid business themes can be quite challenging. If you’re looking for a powerful but well-optimized theme at no cost, we suggest using Astra.
It’s the most popular theme in the world after the default Twenty Twenty Two theme that comes with WordPress.
If you set up an eCommerce store as part of your business website, there are dedicated templates included within Astra.
You can start using Astra from within your WordPress dashboard:
Go to Appearance > Themes > Add New and search for Astra.
When you find the theme, click Install then Activate.
The theme will add a new Astra Options tab to your Appearance menu.
Go to this tab and click Install Importer Plugin.
The next step is to choose a page builder.
The default WordPress page builder is Gutenberg. You can choose this if you like or select Elementor or Beaver Builder.
On the next page, you can choose the type of site you’re building to see more relevant template options.
We’ll select Business. If you’re setting up a store as well as a business website, explore eCommerce templates too.
Try out different templates by previewing them in a new tab.
Once you find the template you like, click Import Complete Site.
Astra will now import this template and make all the necessary design changes.
You can further customize your site’s look by going to Appearance > Customize.
Talking of customizing, you need to build some important pages to get started. Let’s do that now.
Step 4: Add Important Website Pages
Irrespective of your business niche, your site needs some important pages. They include the Homepage, About, Contact, and legal pages like the Privacy Policy page.
Some will have been created when you installed the Starter Template, but not all will.
To build your first page, navigate to Pages > Add New.
Here, click the + icon to add new content like paragraphs, shortcodes, and media (images, documents, and videos) using the WordPress block editor.
Once you’re done, you can save the page as a draft or publish it immediately.
You can also edit pages like the homepage which WordPress created automatically.
To do this, go to Pages > All Pages and click Edit beneath any page you want.
In WordPress, you can add as many pages as you’d like to your site!
Step 5: Add More Features to Your Site With WordPress Plugins
Depending on the nature of your business, you can add more features to your site using different plugins.
Here are some important business site plugins you should check out:
- Design: Ultimate Addons for Elementor
- Contact forms: WPForms.
- Analytics: MonsterInsights.
- SEO: Rank Math
- Products Visibility: Schema Pro.
- Speed optimization: WP Rocket.
- Security and backup: Jetpack.
- Conversion Optimization: Convert Pro.
- WooCommerce: Cartflows.
To round things off, let’s share some quick tips for promoting your new WordPress site.
Tips for Promoting Your WordPress Business Website
Setting up your blog is just the beginning of your journey. Once you’re comfortable with it, we recommend some of the following:
- Focus on your blog content.
- Optimize your website SEO for keywords.
- Craft any store pages carefully using best practices.
- Monitor your analytics.
- Optimize site speed and make your pages mobile-friendly.
- Encourage social sharing.
- Spend time ensuring your checkout is as streamlined as possible.
- Build custom landing pages.
- Invest in email marketing.
Time to Take Your Small Business Online!
In this article, we covered all the basics of building a fully-featured small business site with WordPress. We also included the steps required to set up the foundations of an eCommerce store.
There’s no better time to build a website for your small business. It helps you portray it in a professional light and attract new customers.
WordPress presents a very fast, easy and efficient way to build your first business website. You can do this with little to no technical experience.
However, if you need help with building your dream website, you can reach out to the WisdmLabs to build a customized solution for you. You can rely on these Platinum Level WooExperts for everything from building scalable, high-traffic eCommerce sites to producing excellent WooCommerce plugins and themes!
We hope this article proved useful in setting up your small business site in WordPress. Please let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below.
