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10 things you should think about before building your own website

Female florist sat on the floor with her laptop resting on her legs whilst she updates her Go Sitebuilder website. She is wearing jeans, a blue top and a neutral coloured apron. Flowers can be seen in the background.

Creating a website is the next step for your business, but where do you start? Before you leap into choosing a colour scheme, have a look at our 10 pointers on the most important factors to consider when planning your webpage.

1. Domain name

This should be short, simple and memorable. You’re going to have to pay a fee to have the rights to use this name, so make sure it counts! Brainstorm ideas, align it with your branding strategy, and check that you’re not violating any copyright law with your domain name. 

2. Audience

You need to know who your target audience are and what they want, this way you can appeal to their needs. Use analytics tools to get data on your current clients so that you can create a website that will attract traffic with a higher potential conversion rate. 

3. Social media

Much as we complain about them, almost all of us are using at least one form of social media. This is a great tool to help expand the reach of your brand and for users to recommend and share your services, so make sure your website has an option to share content on social media. 

4. Design

Users create a first impression of your site in a couple of seconds, so good clean design is paramount. Make sure the homepage isn’t too cluttered, and make sure it has a clear call to action so that users know what you provide and how they can access it.

5. Sitemap

Before starting to build a website, you’ll need to sketch out a quick plan of what pages you want to include and consider the user experience at each step. Will the user easily be able to find what they need? Are the pages presented in a clear and efficient way?

6. SEO

It doesn’t matter how beautiful and engaging your website is if it doesn’t get the clicks in the first place. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an invaluable step in the creation of a website, as it allows Google to easily rank the page and make it visible for your target users.

7. Security

It is easy to forget about this step, but good security is vital in order to keep your website healthy and to build trust in your clients, especially if they are sharing personal information through your site. This should be addressed at the beginning of website design, as pages need to have SSL certificates and regular security checks. 

8. Compatibility

Your website needs to work on all browsers, but most importantly, it needs to be compatible with mobile devices. Mobile internet use has increased by 222% since 2013, and 85% of adults think that a website should work just as well or better on a mobile device than on desktop.

9. Hosting

The website host you use will determine how quickly your site loads. If your site takes a long time to load, it will directly affect the amount of people who visit your site; 53% of users will stop engaging with a site if it takes over three seconds to load. Make sure your file sizes aren’t too big and run tests to check your loading speed before you make your site public. 

10. Price

What you can get will depend on what you can spend. A custom-built website will cost thousands, but a website creator can give you a great design for a fraction of the cost. Do your research to get the best deal. 

There are lots of factors to consider when building your website, but if you’re still feeling lost, then Go Sitebuilder gives you a 14-day free trial of their simple and streamlined process to create and manage your website. Give it a go today!

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Can you build a website for free?

Male business owner working from home and using his laptop to update this Go Sitebuilder website. He is wearing a blue v-neck t-shirt, sitting at a desk that has a mug, notebook and hard hat on.

If you’ve got a business you need a website. If you’re just starting out, though, is it worth shelling out a monthly sum for a paid domain when there are so many free options available? We look at the pros and cons of free website builders and building a website for free.

Why choose a free website?

With so many free website creators on the market, it’s easy to see why so many people have chosen the unpaid option to make their first digital footprint. Even if you don’t know anything about website design, they offer ready-made themes tailored to specific sectors that give your site a professional look in minutes. Many small companies start off on social media, and a free website offers a significant step up from a Facebook or Instagram page. Seems like a good deal, but there are limitations to a free website.

Why choose a paid website?

A free website provider normally has its drawbacks. First, you cannot get your own domain, but instead, have to piggyback on the name of the provider. One of the most popular free website creators, Wix, forces you to create an unwieldy and unprofessional web address along the lines of www.yourname.wixsite.com/yoursite. 

Another disadvantage is that most free websites cap their storage and bandwidth, which means you’ll be limited in the number of images, videos and blogs you’ll be able to upload. Restricted bandwidth will make your site slower, resulting in a worse user experience and a less visible site in terms of SEO.

The website may be free for you, but the providers need to make money through you somehow, which they do by cluttering up your page with their own adverts. The companies also bombard you with emails detailing all the features available in their paid version in a bid to get you to upgrade.

To decide whether it’s worth getting a free website rather than a paid one, then you need to look at your priorities. If you just want a web presence where you can show your services and upload blogs, then a free plan is all you need. However, if you are looking to grow your company, increase your SEO and need certain features such as online selling or mobile capability, then it might be better to look at a paid version. 

If you’re still not sure, Go SiteBuilder offers a 14-day free trial where you can see which features work for you and your business, as well as a team of experts on hand to offer support if you need it. Give it a go today!

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What you need to start building your website

Caucasian female working from home in her kitchen. The kitchen is white with a dark wood surface. She is wearing a casual denim shirt and has notebooks, pens and a camera on the desk next to her

Thinking of building a website for your company but don’t know where to start? It’s easy to get bogged down in the details of what you do and don’t need, but we’ve compiled a handy list of key things you should think about to create a great website in line with your brand. 

Web hosting

First things first; you need to find somewhere to host your website. The best options provide a personalised domain name and multiple business email addresses, but there are three other areas to bear in mind; website speed, uptime reliability and customer service.

A website with a fast connection will rank better in SEO and increase your conversion rate, so avoid shared hosting and know that the cheaper you go, the slower the connection may be. 

Uptime reliability is also extremely important, as if the host isn’t working properly, your users won’t be able to access your website from any server. Look for a host with a 100% uptime guarantee, so that if your site does go down for any reason, you are likely to get some form of compensation. 

You might not think that customer service deserves a place on this list, but let’s face it, things go wrong. If this is your first time building a website, it’s much easier to quickly talk to an expert who can fix the issue in moments rather than spending precious hours trying to find a solution yourself. 

Design and Content

Not a designer? Don’t worry, most website creators have their own pre-loaded designs and themes ready to use and optimised for the type of service you provide, but check that they also have mobile capability. You can always try a few out before you decide on a final one, but make sure it aligns with your brand and your logo. 

When you’ve got your web-hosting site and themes set up, it’s time to start adding content to your website! Optimising blog posts for SEO is a great way to help your website rank better on Google and stand out as a relevant resource for your prospective clients. 

Creating a beautiful and effective website shouldn’t be a hassle. If you want all the features mentioned in this article and more, why not sign up for a free 14-day trial with Go SiteBuilder? Let us know how it goes, and contact our team of experts if you have any questions!

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Launching a new website – should I use .com or .co.uk?

should I use .com or new .co.uk

Where are your clients from? This question will help you get to the answer quickly. All .co.uk websites show that the business deals with customers based in the United Kingdom. All .com websites show that a company deals with customers on a global scale; therefore, they may lack tailor-made services for local customers. Sites with country codes like .co.uk command the market in their respective countries but have little to no effect in others. This article is here to break down whether you should use a .com or .co.uk domain extension.

Pros of using a .com extension

A .com domain extension is the most widely used website extension. Its market is wide as it does not incline to users from a specific area. Therefore, a business that wants to reach the global market can use the .com extension. In the worldwide market, a .com website extension seems more authentic and legitimate. Potential customers from diverse areas feel that the information or services offered are tailored to a global audience. Therefore, your website can reach more people globally if you choose .com as your website’s extension.

Pros of using a .co.uk extension

Knowing your target market is the first step in realizing the best website extension for your website. All website extensions with country codes are best for businesses that operate within that specific country. Therefore, the most clicked websites in the UK have the .co.uk extension. 

Having a website with a country code like .co.uk proves to be more authentic in the United Kingdom when compared with other extensions. If your site has a country code in its address, its legitimacy may only be recognized in the specific country. Long story short, if you’re a local business with your clients close to you, such as a plumber, tutor, painter, etc., this is the way to go. 

Finding the right extension for you

Using the pros and cons we have listed above, you can now make an educated decision on which extension is the best for your business. If you are a small to medium-sized company located in the United Kingdom, then it would make sense for you to use .co.uk. If you’re wanting to draw in a larger audience, then choose .com, as it is recognized worldwide. Alternatively, you can purchase both domains, but you’ll need to make sure they direct to one single place for search engine optimisation.

Decided on the right domain extension for you? At Go Sitebuilder, you can create a stylish website with a unique domain and up to five email addresses with no previous knowledge in web design. Try out our 14-day free trial today and see just how easy it is to get your business online.

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Core Features to Look For in a website builder

Core Features to Look For in a Site Builder

When you launch your website, you are sending it out into the world wide web to be seen by your audience, and new ones too! Go Sitebuilder helps you build your confidence in site launching, even if you are not a professional site designer. We’ve put together a comprehensive list of what core features to look for in a website builder!

Making your website look appealing

Go Sitebuilder offers several professional designs and a library of beautifully designed sections and themes, all of which are fully customisable. There is a wide range of layout possibilities with the numerous pre-built sections offered. You can style each section of your site individually or even change the whole layout in just a click. These layouts are very responsive to your commands, making it easy to operate your site on smartphones, tablets and larger screens. A beautiful website will make all of the difference. 

Editing images

With the built-in image editor you can re-size, crop, scale, reduce red-eye and even add filters or stickers to your images. This will help you make your photos pop!

Increasing activity on your social media platforms

By adding your social platforms to your site, it becomes easier for site visitors to view your profile and latest posts. Make sure you’re creating content on your social media accounts as well. 

Ensuring communication with customers

When you include contact forms on your site, you’re helping your customers! Following submission of the form, you receive an email on the same in a matter of seconds.

Uploading files

Upload files and PDFs to your site so that customers can easily view, download and print them. We love this feature, especially for restaurant menus.

Embedding external content

You can add relevant outside content from other sites such as YouTube and Pinterest to your site.

SEO

Ensure your site gets fully indexed on search engines by adding site-level and page-level SEO tags and content.

Creating a gallery

Incorporate an appealing multi-image gallery on your site for visitors to view, expand and zoom in. You can import images from your Facebook page or from the Go Sitebuilder stock image gallery to your site. Additionally, you can set these images in a slide-show that transitions both manually and automatically.

Previewing your site

Before you publish, see a preview of how your site will appear on any device in both portrait and landscape layouts. In this way, you can add products and updates from anywhere.

Mapping domains

Do you have multiple domains that you wish to make available on your site? Go Sitebuilder offers a simplified domain mapping page for this.

Analysing customer insights

By incorporating the Google Analytics tracking code into your site, you can see what your audience thinks of your site. This can help you in a number of ways in the future, we’ll touch more on this in a future post.

Website personalisation

Add personal content into your website including videos, audios, text and maps to increase site traffic.

Creating a product store

With Go Sitebuilder, you can create a store with assorted products and stock as much as you wish. Additionally, you get to integrate various payment options such as PayPal and major credit cards and also create customised offers, just-arrived items, discount vouchers or redeemable points for customers. You can create a preset stock level that gives you alerts when certain products fall below that level.

With Go Sitebuilder, you can choose from a huge selection of professional and beautiful themes and personalise it to your company, safe in the knowledge that whatever you choose will work just as seamlessly on mobile and desktop. Take advantage of our 14-day free trial (no credit card needed) to see just how easy it is.

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What is the best day to launch a new website?

Male business owner reviewing some paper work in a stylish, light office with exposed brick work

Launching your new website is a grand event. Some people choose a day that resonates with them while others maybe don’t have any idea at all. However, if the website aims at targeting increased traffic, the day of the week matters a lot. When setting the launching day of your site, you need to be aware of the schedule of your clients. In most cases, sites depend on employed people. Therefore, you have to understand their common behaviour in terms of workload, personal time, and attitudes towards the days of the week.

Monday

Launching a website on a busy day for your customers is an ultimate miss. The potential clients are not just about to stop their busy schedules to look at your site. Mondays are known to be very slow days; most people are yet to adjust to the working environment from a fun and busy weekend. The workload is very high when employees deal with stalled tasks from the previous week. On Mondays, people do not have time even to visit their social media pages, and therefore it is hard for them to visit a newly launched website.

The weekend

For most people, weekends are there to be enjoyed. It is during this time that they move out of town to refresh. Most people have physical conversations with friends and families. With the current trends of technology taking over human connections, some people prefer to keep off from the internet. On the weekend, there are very few people to share with the trending issues as families do not have the best environment to discuss emerging issues. Weekends are not the best time to launch a new website as it may not get optimum traffic.

Mid-week

Most people who recommend news are workmates and colleagues. However, this happens when they have some free time. Employees are trapped in their jobs over the weekdays, and this is the best time to launch your new website. However, Mondays are extremely busy and dull for people to have free time. Similarly, Fridays are extremely hyper as employees look forward to the weekend. In this regard, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the days with a conducive environment for the launch of a new website. If a website goes live on Tuesday, people have all day to not only discuss it but visit. For the people who fail to know about the new website, there is Wednesday and Thursday for the word to spread. Before the end of the week, the website will have become popular with many potential clients.

Having a website is crucial for every business. If you haven’t created yours yet, why don’t you check out Go Sitebuilder? Create your website from anywhere without the need for any technical skills. Try Go Sitebuilder free for 14-days to see just how easy it is to get your business online.

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How to get the most out of a new website launch

Close up of a woman's hands typing on a mobile phone.

There is nothing more exciting than having a website that is ready to share with the world. With all of the design, thoughtful content and hard work you’ve put in you’ll want to start showcasing it straight away. But how do you make the most of your launch? There are a few steps you can make to get the most out of this time, and the best part is, we’ve already written it down for you!

Choose the right date

Pick your website launch day with care. You’ll want to make it a day where the most number of visitors possible will take a peek at your website, but also if there are any last-minute tweaks or changes to make that you’re on hand to remedy them.

Quick tip: avoid launching your website on a Friday, weekend, bank holiday or other major holiday dates! People are most likely enjoying the festivities and not browsing the web.

Engage with audiences

Don’t make your website launch a one-way communication process. Naturally, you’ll have a lot to say to your new site visitors, but give them the opportunity to interact with you, too! This can boost engagement and may provide you with useful information about your audiences and what they want from your business or content, which may help to steer your website towards future success.

Remember you can also use your social media pages to chat with your audiences both before, during and after launch day.

Consider your rankings

It’s important that audiences are able to find your new website easily, so using effective search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies is important to help improve your search ranking and reach more people.

Whenever you publish any information about your new website launch, utilise your content so that every piece of communication has the potential to boost your search profile. For example, include relevant keywords naturally in any news or update posts, and vary the style of content you produce to mix things up a bit. If you’re an SEO newbie, take a look at our beginner’s guide to SEO over on our blog

Use some of the same tactics that you used to create all of the content for your new website, including writing about a variety of different styles: from blog posts, videos and beautiful photos.

Add analytics

How will you know if your website launch has been successful? In particular, how many people have visited your new site, which pages they looked at and what their profiles are? It’s super simple! Just make sure you get signed up with Google Analytics before launch day.

The beauty of Google Analytics is that it will also tell you whether viewers just looked at the landing page of your site, or whether they explored further. You can use this information to your advantage, to ensure your content is enticing and leaves people wanting more. You can also use this data to see what pages are popular, what devices people are using, what time of day they’re visiting and so much more.

Having a website is crucial for every business. If you haven’t created yours yet, why don’t you check out Go Sitebuilder? Create your website from anywhere without the need for any technical skills. Try Go Sitebuilder free for 14-days to see just how easy it is to get your business online.

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How Can I Make My Website Famous?

Nine people stood in a line, leaning against a brick wall and using their mobile phones

As a business owner, you’ll want to ensure people are finding and viewing your website. A website is a powerful, essential marketing tool you can use to raise your profile and increase your sales, but if no one is actually visiting it, it’s never going to achieve the results you want. Luckily, there’s plenty you can do to change that, and while making your website famous might be a bit of a stretch, you can certainly drive more traffic with just a few simple steps. Here are three of the easiest, tried and tested methods for you to try.

1. Don’t underestimate offline marketing

While a good website will attract a new and potentially profitable audience, it should also be a place for your existing customers to visit as well. You can provide them with an opportunity to learn more about your company and even make their purchases online. But remember, they can only do this if they’re aware of your site’s existence. 

Try making an effort to increase your visibility in the places your target market lives and visits. This means that from business cards to billboards, newsletters and even simply answering your phone, it’s a good idea to include information about your website and social media platforms in these new places for your audience to see it.

2. Mention your website online (and do it on a regular basis)

Don’t be afraid to share a shameless plug here and there – it’s your website and you should be proud of it! The internet essentially functions as a giant map, pointing users in the direction of relevant information, which means it’s key to have your site featured on it. The best way to do this is by mentioning it as often as you can, whether it’s by sending your products to bloggers and having them add a link to your website or by publishing press releases. You can also join online communities, like relevant Facebook pages, and share your website when people ask for similar services or products that you provide – just remember not to spam anyone!

3. Educate yourself on SEO

Last but not least, spend some time familiarising yourself with SEO and how it works. It doesn’t have to be complicated. We’ve created a quick guide for beginners over on our blog if you don’t believe how easy it can be. Standing for ‘search engine optimisation’, SEO is the method used by companies to ensure that their website ranks as highly as possible when people run searches on search engines like Google. The idea is that consumers are most likely to click on results at the very top of the first page, so by focusing on including certain keywords in your content, you can improve your position and make yourself much more visible.

When it comes to boosting the popularity of your website, there are lots of methods you can try. If your website isn’t online yet, why not try a 14-day free trial with Go Sitebuilder and see just how easy it is to create your dream website without any technical skills!

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How do I launch a website for free?

Female working from home on a laptop and tablet device whilst drinking a hot drink. She is sat at a table with her living room in the background

Today, lots of people are creating and running their own websites, and you can do the same! There are lots of options for small businesses to get online – even without the need to hire an expensive web professional or develop a new skill yourself.

There are various free website-building services out there that allow you to build a website quickly and get published in a matter of minutes. You just need to find the right one for your needs and get stuck in. Bear in mind, however, that free sites typically mean a limited service, and there will probably be ads on your site to cover the host’s costs.

Try it for free

At Go Sitebuilder, we offer a free 14-day trial so you can see exactly what our website builder can do. The trial also lets you explore the possibilities of a paid platform with dedicated support. During the free trial, you will be able to publish your website with a Go Sitebuilder domain and enjoy the full functionality of our service. When the 14-day period is over, you will have the option to go premium and start running your website like a pro.

Keeping it free

If, however, you are determined to commit to a free service, you will need to do a bit of exploring. At the free level, hosts will put a low cap on the amount of data you can upload to your website (meaning you’ll be limited on adding things like images and videos). Different hosts will have different policies, so you should explore your options. The bandwidth limits are also low, and there could be other restrictions. Shop around to find a host that offers the best service for your needs in their free package.

If you’re a business that’s looking for sustainable success, we wouldn’t recommend a free website builder as a viable long-term option. There are millions of websites on the internet, and there will be competition in your space. This competition could have very expensive, very professional websites of their own. The limitations of a free website will mean you will almost certainly be unable to compete with this. It’s also unlikely that you’ll also be able to get a free, unique domain name – making it difficult for your customers to find you online. A free website is a good way to familiarise yourself with a platform, but you will need to invest in your site if you want it to be successful.

A simple solution

Fortunately, there are inexpensive ways for you to get your business online. Our premium plans at Go Sitebuilder are just £9.99 per month, and this will give you unlimited access to a wide array of powerful features like ecommerce, emails and a free domain name. Get started with a free 14-day trial and you’ll see just how easy it really is!