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Expert Answers to Biz Questions
Listen in! Pick up some expert advice to a reader's question that we selected from CyberSchmooz.
How To Design A Professional Business Website With No Tech Experience
If you don't own a website, or have a severely outdated one, you can easily change your situation for the better. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to have any technical experience to create a professionally designed website. There are a myriad of tools at your disposal that can help make it happen if you know where to look and don't lose patience. Learning how to build a website doesn't have to take up all your time, and these four tips will show exactly how you can leverage free platforms and tools to showcase your business the right way:
Try Wordpress
Wordpress has plenty to offer users with no technical experience. The platform has free and paid options depending on your needs, but both are highly advantageous. Unlike other content management systems that only host a handful of free themes, Wordpress has hundreds of high-quality options. There's virtually no HTML required, making it extremely user-friendly, and even without any plugins, having a Wordpress site yields automatic SEO benefits.
It also comes equipped with comprehensive media management, acting as mini-Dropbox where you can title images, add details, and sort through your photos. On the other hand, user management makes it easy to control permissions for different users, ensuring that no aspect of the site gets ruined by someone else's hands. Setting up a blog component takes a single click, and if you want someone else to man the writing, all they'll need is editor user permissions to get the job done.
Use Plugins
Now that we've discussed Wordpress, we can talk about one of biggest benefits of the platform: plugins. There are nearly 50,000 Wordpress plugins, and their features and use cases run the gamut. These can be free or paid, and some are free with optional paid upgrades. Here are three particularly useful plugins:
OptinMonster: This plugin is perfect for businesses, as it allows them to convert visitors who have abandoned your site into subscribers. This is the type of feature you can't get with storefront marketing (unless you're chasing a customer down the street as they walk out).
MonsterInsights: This is a Google Analytics plugin that helps you learn more about your visitors, such as where they're coming from and what they're doing on your site. Having access to these valuable statistics can help you properly optimize your web pages.
Yoast: Yoast is one of the most popular SEO plugins, and it operates with one central goal: to boost your website's search engine rankings. It does this by conducting a thorough page and post analysis, telling you exactly where your site lacks SEO, and how to fix it.
Do Your Research
When seeking inspiration for your website, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This doesn't mean that you have to copy a website entirely, but taking a look at how your competitors (near and far) and how business owners in other industries are crafting their sites can help steer you in the right direction. Doing research is simple. For example, if you're a pest removal company in Houston, you might want to search Google for “pest removal in San Jose.”
Be careful not to plagiarize someone's website, as this could get you into some legal trouble. Rather, take notes on the layout, navigation, and general theme. Use these to guide your own design making process, and take screenshots or print images of the websites that are most inspirational to you.
Hire Cost-Effective Freelancers
Outsourcing is one of the best ways to keep more money in your pocket, and there are freelancers across every industry eager to offer their services, from graphic designers to writers. Websites like Fiverr, Freelancer, and Upwork can be used to your advantage. Simply post a job detailing your specific, and sort through the many applications that fit your desired expertise level and budget. Or, go the reverse route, and use filters to sort through the hundreds of profiles and shortlist a handful of candidates that match what you're looking for. It's simple, quick, and allows you to focus on areas of your site that you're best at.
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