Building a professional website for your London business

Every business needs a website to market itself. But in a digitally connected city like London, where customers are likely to check your website before contacting you or visiting your store, it's even more crucial.

Give your London business the online presence it deserves by following this guidance and building a website that will help you thrive.

Your website's overall aim

What do you want your website to do? How you build it, and the features you include, will depend on the type of business you're running.

• Products to sell? Your aim is to get people to buy, so focus on building a great online (e-commerce) store.

• Services to promote? Engage customers across London by creating a website that explains what you offer and how people can hire you.

• Want to generate leads? That means collecting users' contact details. Build a website that makes it really easy for people to give you this information.

Every page on your website should serve your overall aim.

Researching the competition

Look at how successful websites in your industry are laid out.

• How many pages does the site have?

• What purpose do they serve?

• Do you like the way the site looks? Are any pages more striking than others?

• Is the site easy to navigate, or do you find it confusing?

You may notice that many of these websites share similarities. E-commerce sites, for example, will always try and steer visitors towards product pages. Use any patterns you find to plan your own website.

Building your website

You can use either a website builder or a self-hosted solution.

• Website builders such as Wix, Squarespace and Weebly are great for beginners, as you don't need any technical knowledge to get started.

  They come with templates and drag-and-drop tools that let you create a professional-looking website quickly and easily.

• Self-hosted solutions like WordPress, Drupal, BigCommerce and Shopify give you more control and flexibility, though you may need some technical expertise.

  You can customise your site using the built-in plugins and themes, and there are SEO options for helping your site rank on search engines.

Choosing a domain name

This is the unique address that users type in their browsers to access your website.

Pick a domain name that's easy to remember and relevant to your brand. Also make sure it isn't too similar to websites that already exist.

The top-level-domain is the text after the dot in your domain name, like .com, .co.uk or .uk. Lots of businesses selling all over the world use .com as their domain, while many UK businesses opt for .co.uk.

The .LONDON domain

Did you know that as a London business, you can choose .london as your domain? The .LONDON city domain helps visitors recognise you as a London-based business and lets you further establish your presence across the city.

If a web address like www.celia-flowers.work.blog.com feels too long and wordy, why not go for something as simple as celiaflowers.london?

But the benefits don't end there. Not only will the .LONDON domain help you rank better in relevant internet searches, but it has a strong reputation when it comes to being secure and trustworthy.

Key web pages to include

Homepage

Usually the first point of call for anyone wanting to know more about your business. A good homepage not only explains your product or service, but provides:

• A lead generation form (or a link to one).

• Links to your "About us" page, your blog (if you have one) and your product pages.

• Testimonials or reviews.

• A search box.

Admittedly, that's quite a lot for one page, so revisit your site's overall aim. Decide which homepage features should guide people towards your goal, and make sure that feature really stands out.

Say you run a mobile vehicle cleaning business, for example. The aim with your homepage would be to direct visitors as quickly as possible towards your booking form.

"About us" page

This tells customers what you do and reassures them that you're a business they can trust.

Focus on your company and the people behind it. Talk about your business history and include short biographies and pictures of the staff (this might only be you!). Providing contact details and a real-world address helps people see that you're authentic.

Product pages

Very important if you're selling a physical product. These pages should have high-quality images of everything you sell, along with all the information a customer needs to decide whether to buy.

Good website builders (see Building your website above) help you build good product pages, but you may need to take your own photos and write the product descriptions yourself.

You can decide how to organise your product pages and how many products you'll display on each page. People need to be able to click through your site in a logical way.

Lead generation page

Include this page if you're offering a service rather than a product. It's there to persuade someone to give you their details so you can move them to the next stage of your sales process. That could be offering a quote, or contacting them to discuss their needs in depth.

If you offer more than one service, have a page for each service and make sure each page has a way to capture people's information. A simple contact form is usually enough.

Website navigation

People should be able to find your most important pages from any page on your site. And every page on your site should be linked to by at least one other page.

Make a flowchart to show how your pages link together. Use it to plot out a clear and logical journey that potential customers can follow.

Think of different reasons why people would visit the site. Then use the flowchart to work out how many clicks it will take them to reach the page they're after. Ideally, it should be one, two clicks at most. If it's more, you may need to re-plan.

Maintaining your website

Once your site is up and running, update it often so it remains user-friendly, relevant and secure.

Add fresh content like new blogs, and keep product or service listings fully up to date. Monitor your performance – such as page visits and conversions – to identify areas to build on. Carry out regular security audits to protect your website against potential cyber threats.

Read more:

• Social media marketing for small businesses in London: a brief guide

• Six marketing steps for your business success [WEBINAR]

• Key contacts and organisations for start-ups

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