First impressions count. Your website is the face of your business and is usually the first introduction with customers and the general public to what you do, making it one of the most essential tools a business can have.

Although not everyone can afford to hire a professional to build their websites for them, this is especially true for small and emerging businesses. Thankfully, there are some options available to beginners, that can help them establish an efficient, basic website for less.

Here are some tips for beginners to building their own websites.

1. Register your domain name and check if it is available

You can do this via a site called http://co.za

Remember to keep you name short and user friendly for customers who will be using your site.

-Bad example www.supercalafragelisticexpialadocious.co.za

-Good example www.supercal.co.za

We Love IT can host and register your domain for as little as R99 per month. This will allow you to operate a website under your chosen domain and receive emails to this domain.

2. Choose a platform to build your website with

There are many hosting options out there such as WordPress or Shopstar. You should choose a platform which suits the needs of your website, for instance if you want to do online retailing or just provide more information on your services.

Call We Love IT for some advice or hosting assitance on which platform would best be suited for your type of business.

The use of these platforms requires a well spent monthly fee and serve as a back end, user friendly, administration tool to manage your site from behind the scenes. There are also usually a number of professionally designed tempelates you can choose from which will direct the look and feel of your site.

3. Plugins

There are some very useful tools you can buy to make your website work for you.

One which we can’t do without is a mail plugin. Some examples of mail plugins are Mailpoet or Mailchimp.

The mail plugin enables your website to build a database and send newsletters to your database, keeping them up to date with what is happening with your business.

You can add a variety of different plugins to suit your needs such as shopping carts or contact forms.

4. Web management tips

Now that you have built your basic site. You should update it as often as possible to keep it relevant and fresh. Inform your customers about your updates and news by linking your site to social media pages and by using your mail plugin (try not to send a mail more than once a week, but not less than a month)

Make sure your website is user friendly on all devices such as cell phones and iPads. If you are struggling to achieve this, call We Love IT for some advice.

Increase you SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This means boosting your sites ranking on google and making it easy to find for customers. We LoveIT can assist you with this, call them for a quote.

Goodluck with your new site! And remember, if you need any help with any of these steps to building your site, We Love IT offers the best rates, the friendliest service and is here to help.