Source: Freepik

Alt: A close-up of a laptop with a web development concept on the screen

Building a website, though often seems hard and expensive, especially for small businesses, is inevitable if you are hoping to achieve success in today’s world. Yet, simply designing a neat site isn’t enough to get out there and start selling your products or services.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the importance of having a website, answer the key questions, and give you step-by-step instructions for implementing website design and SEO simultaneously to gain the most benefits after you launch.

Why Does Every Business and Personal Brand Need a Website?

A sleek website is one of the pillars of securing digital success and growth. Just like your business cards or office are the continuation of your brand image, a website is too, just in the online landscape.

If you are still hesitating whether you actually need to have one, you can think of your site as a central hub for your online presence. It helps:

  • Create online visibility and ensure that prospects can access your brand digitally.
  • Build brand recognition.
  • Gain a competitive edge by enhancing the professionalism and credibility of your company in prospects’ eyes.
  • Obtain a centralised online space for displaying your product and services and marketing them to potential buyers.
  • Optimise your customer service and offer holistic support through different channels.
  • Access a huge amount of data that can be used for customer analysis and informed decision-making.

Website Building: What Does It Take and How Do You Handle It?

Even when you realise its role and value, there might still be quite a few questions left while you still don’t have a website. According to the UK Website Statistics published by Forbes Advisor, only 78% of small businesses in the UK currently have a running website. As for the rest, as many as 69% of them confirm that they think they should build one.

Then what’s the problem?

Although business owners recognise the value of owning a website, they are typically stopped by several stumbling blocks:

  • They are concerned about the time.
  • They have restricted budgets.
  • They don’t have the resources (including the workforce) to do it.

Let’s address each of these issues one by one:

  1. How long does it take to build a website? It really depends on the method and goals. However, typically, the needed time is much shorter than you imagine–from 4-6 weeks for a simple site to 6 months tops for a complex, functionality-rich site.
  2. How much does it cost to build a website? This also depends on a number of factors, and it isn’t quite as bad. On average, the cost of a DIY site can be between £0 and £500, whereas the price for outsourcing or hiring a web developer can reach tens of thousands.
  3. How can you build a website? This is the most exciting part! There is a rather widespread misconception that it takes a large team and a wealth of coding experience. Yet, it’s not quite true. These days, you can do it yourself, using the resources you currently have, and we’re about to tell you how!

Building a Website From Scratch: 9 Steps to Launching and Growing

Now that you know that not everything is that scary or bad with web development, let us help you get on the right track!

In this part of our guide, we’ll tell you how to create a good-looking and SEO-friendly website from A to Z yourself.

1. Define Your Objective First

Just like in any other endeavour, it always starts with a clear objective, especially if you want to make your path streamlined. In website development, clarifying a specific goal will affect what kind of site you will be building, what features you will embed into it, and so on.

For example:

  • Goal: You want to start selling your products online.
    • Solution: You need to develop an e-commerce website with a convenient catalogue of products, a search feature, and seamless checkout.
  • Goal: You want to start selling your services/subscriptions online.
    • Solution: You need to build an appealing site that provides a lot of content on your services and unique selling points, has convenient booking and demo-requesting features, and offers payment automation opportunities for recurring payments. 
  • Goal: You want to establish your online visibility and attract leads and buyers.
    • Solution: You need to develop a website that both engages the prospects and markets your brand and products; such platforms need to focus on content.

As you can see, even slight variations in your end goal can affect the design and features you want to bring into your future site. So, be sure to take enough time to clarify your long-term goals before moving further.

2. Select a Platform That Suits You

The easiest way to build the best SEO website without coding knowledge and experience is by using a specialised builder platform. The options available out there include popular tools like Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, Shopify, and many others.

Consider the following factors to select a platform that will match your needs:

  • Purpose—First, assess what kind of website you want to create and research builders that serve your purpose. There are some builders who are multifaceted. Yet, there are also tools meant to serve a specific kind of website, such as Shopify, which is meant for crafting e-commerce sites.
  • Usability—If you have no coding experience and have never used builders before, you want to choose a tool that is intuitive and beginner-friendly.
  • Flexibility —To make your website emphasise the professionalism and value of your brand, you will want to create a branded design that aligns with your identity. Thus, you want to assess the flexibility and customisation features offered by different builders.
  • Support—By selecting a platform that offers holistic and timely customer support, you can eliminate any potential issues in the future.
  • Cost—Obviously, the chosen tool should align with your budget and offer a good value for money.
  • Additional features—Research the plugins, compatible tools, and other features offered by every platform to choose one that gives you the functionality you need.
  • Scalability—Last but not least, you need to select a solution that will let you accommodate the growing needs of your business in the future.

3. Choose Your Hosting and Domain Name

A hosting provider is a service that supplies your site with the storage space and hardware it needs to operate. Some website builders, such as Wix and WordPress, instantly provide you with hosting, which you can use for free. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that your hosting provider directly impacts the speed of your pages. Hence, it has an influence on your user experience (UX) and SEO. That is why you may want to choose it separately.

The key things to pay attention to include:

  • Processor (CPU power)
  • SSD vs. HDD
  • RAM
  • Network and connectivity
  • Resource distribution
  • Software and configuration
  • Caching and CDN (Content Delivery Network)
  • Content and code optimisation

Additionally, pay special attention to encryption opportunities and SSL certificates because the external safety of your company’s resources is no less important than your internal security.

After you decide on your service provider, come up with a clear and memorable domain name (typically, it will consist of your brand’s name). Then choose its availability and register it with your hosting.

4. Map the Structure

Outlining the right structure is a crucial stage in creating an effective SEO website design. It determines how easily and naturally people will navigate through your site. Needless to say, people don’t stick around sites that aren’t convenient. Respectively, the structure will influence the overall UX, as well as crucial signals for SEO like time on page and average session duration.

To handle this stage, create a visual map of your future platform. Make sure there is a home page and several dedicated category pages aligned with the purpose and features of your site. Add a convenient menu and search feature for maximum UX.

When mapping the architecture, pay special attention to your URL structure—every page needs to have a dedicated, descriptive URL address, which you can also optimise for SEO using target keywords.

Source: Freepik

Alt: A laptop with a visual map and design of the site’s architecture

5. Create SEO-Friendly Human-Centred Content

This step is the ultimate stage of combining website development and SEO. While the hosting, design, and structure all play a big role in your online visibility, content is still the cornerstone of SEO. So, once you handle all the previous steps, it’s time to focus on your copy.

Here is what you need to do:

  • Start with competitor analysis. Check what kind of content your direct competitors deliver, which queries they target, and assess other points of their strategies that enable them to rank high and consider adopting the same tactics.
  • Research relevant and high-volume keywords that you can easily rank for (look for low to medium competition). You can automate this process using the best SEO software for agencies—professional keyword research tools will let you target promising queries in less time. Group keywords into clusters by their topic and intent to make them ready to use in your content strategy.
  • Engage in website content creation. You need to craft copy for your home page, landing pages, blog, and other elements of your site. When writing your content, optimise it by integrating keywords into headings, subheadings, metadata, and body text. Most importantly, make your copy human-centred and write according to Google’s E-E-A-T and other guidelines for quality results.

6. Create a Blog

After you create some volume of SEO content, you need to set up a blog on your website. Regardless of your initial goal, a blog is a must-have element that can let you attract leads, inform prospects, build awareness, and ensure conversions. So, you need to create one, regardless of your niche.

Once you set up a blog, start publishing optimised and engaging content on it. Your goal is to fill your site with as much high-quality content as you can before the launch.

7. Add Social Proof

After you fill your pages with relevant and high-quality content, you also need to provide some social proof for your brand. This includes customer reviews, user-generated content, and backlinks. All these things show the professionalism and reliability of your company. Respectively, you want to provide it as quickly as possible to look authoritative in your prospects’ eyes.

8. Improve Speed and Mobile Usability

When your site is filled with some content, you can assess its technical performance and perform the needed changes to create optimal UX and rank higher. Use reliable test tools to assess the speed and mobile-friendliness of your website. If the result isn’t as good as you need, implement the following tips to improve:

  • Consider changing a theme. All popular builders feature customisable themes that have responsive website design for SEO and mobile-friendliness.
  • Optimise navigation and functionality for mobile users and test thoroughly to ensure proper work.
  • Optimise large content elements, such as videos and images. Strive to reduce their sizes without losing quality to speed up page loading.
  • Implement caching and a content delivery network for faster loading.

9. Install Analytics, Launch, and Measure the Results

Finally, when everything seems to be ready, there are just a few final touches you need to take care of. First of all, select reliable analytical plugins that will let you collect insights and measure your site’s performance and SEO.

When ready, launch your platform. From day one, start collecting data about technical performance, traffic, user behaviour, and SEO. Assess the outcomes to make strategic improvements and grow faster!

Conclusion

A well-organised, SEO-friendly website that users find and love is an essential element of business success in today’s world. As you now know, building one can help you establish visibility, boost recognition, set yourself as a legitimate and authoritative brand, provide better customer service, and accomplish a range of other crucial business goals. And though there are many concerns, it’s not as hard as you may think.

Now you have a detailed guide that will help! From the moment you define your goals and all the way to crafting SEO-friendly website content and improving the technical performance. With this guide, you know how to handle every stage of web development with maximum outcomes. So, don’t hesitate to start now, and good luck with building a website that drives business growth!