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How to make a website for small business you already run
How to make a website for small business starts with a decision. If customers already use your address, do not throw it away. If you have no site at all, buy the domain in your own name first, then put up one page that can take a call.
How to make a website for small business from what you already have
Find the address on your truck, your invoices, and your Google listing. Type it into your phone. If a page opens, that is the site you already have. Write down the phone number it shows, the hours, and the towns. Circle anything that is wrong. That list is your content. You do not need a blank template to invent a company you already run.
If nothing opens, check two things before you pay for a design. Log in where you renew the name and see if the domain expired. Search your email for the host login. A dead site is often a billing problem. Fix that before you buy a second name.
The first page, and only the first page
Write the home page on paper before anyone designs it. One line for the business name, spelled the way the truck spells it. One line for the towns you actually drive. The phone number. What you do. What you do not do. Hours. One proof line, such as a license or the year you started. Heritage Roofing can say Stephenville since 1986. You use your own fact. Do not borrow a skyline.
- Use photos of jobs you finished. A stock house makes the page look like every other contractor.
- Put the number where a thumb can tap it. Test that on your phone, not on a laptop.
- Skip the slideshow, the mission statement, and the stock team photo.
- Add a second page only when the first page is true. Services, then photos, then a contact page.
Read the page out loud. If a customer cannot tell who you are in ten seconds, cut words. If a sentence could sit on a competitor's site unchanged, cut it.
Keep the name if you replace the pages
Do not take the current site down to start. Build the new pages beside it. Read them. Fix the phone and the towns. Open the result on your phone and tap the number. Only then point the domain at the new host. DNS is the setting that sends the name to a host. Point it last. The domain stays at the company where you renew it. Do not hand that login to a vendor.
After it is live, you still have to change hours, a number, or a town. Know who can make that edit and how long it takes. If the answer is a person who does not pick up, the site will go stale again. A site you cannot edit is a brochure, not a tool.
How you know it is working
Call the number from the page, from a phone that is not yours. Drive the address if you published one. Ask a friend who does not know the trade to find the number without help. Then look in Google Search Console, if you have it, for the words that showed the page. An impression means the page was shown. A click means someone opened it. Neither one is a booked job. No impressions means Google is not showing the page. That is a different problem from a page that looks old.
If you want this done from the site you already have, Vortex Personal is $59 a month for one live site. Pro is $449 a month for up to 10. Business is $2,499 a month for up to 150. Hosting is included. A year is ten times the month price. The old site stays up until you switch.
When the page you have cannot be edited, start a rebuild from the URL you already run.
Test the result on a phone with how to make a website mobile friendly.