You are starting a business and need a first website
A new business needs fewer pages than people think. What it needs is a site that says what you do, where and when, and how to reach you, on accounts that belong to you from the first day.
What to get right at the start
- Open every account in your own name
- The domain, the hosting and the email address should be yours, not a friend’s or a designer’s. Moving them later is slow and sometimes not possible.
- Start with four answers
- What you do, where you do it, when you are open, and how to reach you. A first site with only these is better than a large one that is never finished.
- Pick a domain you can say aloud
- People will hear it on the phone and read it on a truck. Short, no hyphens, and spelled the way it sounds.
- Leave room to grow
- You can add a gallery, a booking page or a blog later. The admin panel lets you add pages without starting again.
What the free check looks for
The free check reads your front page in a few seconds. These are the results that matter most here.
- No page title, so a search for your new name finds nothing useful.
- No meta description, so Google writes your first impression for you.
- No structured data, so search engines must guess what kind of business you are.
Run the free check. The full review goes through every page for $9.
What you get, and what it costs
- You pay what you think the site is worth, from $100. It is the same site at every price.
- Every account, from the domain to the hosting, is in your name.
- It loads fast, works on every phone, and works with a screen reader and a keyboard.
- No trackers, and nothing about your customers is sold.
- If you want me to keep it safe and current, the care plan is $9 a month. It is optional.
Questions
- Should I wait until the business is open?
- No. A simple page that says what is coming and how to reach you lets people find you before the first day.
- Is a Facebook page enough to start?
- It is a good place to post. It is not a place you own, and it does not show up in search the same way. Use both, and point the page at your site.
- I cannot pay much yet. Can I still start?
- You set the price, from the floor shown below. If you cannot pay now, the form has a box to say so.
See what your site needs
Start with the free check of the site you have. If you have no site yet, tell me about your business and I will reply.