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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!

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What is a website launch checklist?

A female of dual heritage is sat in an office meeting room wearing a casual denim shirt creating a website launch checklist

Before you launch your website it’s essential that you have completed all the necessary steps ensure that everything is working properly. No one wants to go to a website and see that something is missing or that a website address is broken! Creating and using a website launch checklist will ensure that everything is up and running as it should be before you invite the rest of the world to look at your site.

Take a look at the quick checklist below to make sure your website is ready to go come launch day…

1. Proofread

When creating amazing content, you’ll need to make sure you’ve taken the time to fix any typos. Customers will notice them and it may be distracting or even impact their perception of your business. Just take a few extra moments to go through your site’s pages and proofread your content to make sure it’s accurate. You can always ask friends and family to give your copy a quick read through as well – it’s always best to have a second pair of eyes on it!

2. Optimise content for user experience

You’ll want to make sure your website is set up to be user-friendly and easily accessible by as many people as possible. Going for a standardised font and size makes the content easy to read for your site users. You’ll need to make sure your menu bar is easy to use and that people can get to where they’re going. If you want to go the extra mile, use a contrast checker to ensure that someone with vision impairments can read the copy on your website.

If your website features audio and video files, you may want to consider transcribing them, then take a quick moment to check these work properly too.

3. Optimisation for search engines

Check that everything works as intended to ensure your web conversions and overall SEO scores are high. Go through your site and click all the clickable links, including images to see if they link through to the desired pages. You’ll want to make sure you have alt-tag descriptions on any images as well, so the search engines can “see” them.

If your website accepts payments, you should also do a test payment, going through the whole process to make sure everything is working as it should do.

4. Check for mobile users

With more and more internet users accessing websites through their mobile, it’s essential that your website is compatible with phones. Grab your own mobile phone and go through every web page, ensuring the text is the correct size, that images are properly spaced, and that all buttons work as they should. It’s also handy to get your friends involved too. The more phones you test on, the better the experience will be.

This isn’t a step you need to worry about if you have a Go Sitebuilder website as all sites are instantly responsive!

5. Do compatibility testing

If your website has been built using plugins, it’s advisable that you run a compatibility test to check against any glitches or conflicts between your site builder and the plugin. It’s just another way of ensuring your website is running smoothly when it comes to launching!

Again, if you have a Go Sitebuilder website this isn’t something you need to add to your list – although we always advise you check all links and forms work before sharing your website. At Go Sitebuilder we have built-in all features and funcationality from the ground up, so you don’t have to use risky third-party plugins.

If you’re still considering the best way to get your website up and running, why not check out our 14-day free trial? No credit cards or previous website building experience needed, so, what are you waiting for?

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What is crucial for effective website design?

A man and a woman standing over a table looking at a piece of paper. The male is wearing a casual denim shirt and holding a pen. The female is wearing a white t-shirt and is standing slightly in the background

A beautiful website will leave a great impression. There are a lot of different directions you can adventure into when designing a new website. We’ve put our heads together to give you this easy to follow list that will help you create the most effective website design.

Keep it simple

You could be forgiven for thinking that the more you add to your website, the better the experience for your audiences. But, there is a fine line between being informative and causing confusion or clutter. Simplicity is the way to go.

Use your space to say what you need to say, but don’t go overboard. Keep your colour palettes, fonts and other design elements clean, minimalist and simple. Not only will this create a sleek design but it will also make it easy for the viewer to digest the information. And, don’t be afraid of the white or blank spaces on your site. These are actually important design elements in their own right.

Use logical navigation

Try to view your website like taking a journey, in that there should be a logical path to follow to get from A to B. Straightforward navigation is a vital component of any website because it enables viewers to easily find the information they’re looking for. If your site lacks cohesion, some visitors may be left wondering where they’re supposed to go.

Your menu bars and page layouts are key to providing clear navigation, but you should also include easy-to-understand calls to actions so that viewers know what to expect or do next. You can easily lead them exactly where you want them to go!

Try out visual media

Cramming your website with text could be hard for your viewers, so think carefully about how you present your written information. Ideally, your text should be easily scannable, so time-starved viewers can still easily find the information they need.

Quick tip: Use lists and bullet points, for example, to break chunks of text up.

Another essential strategy to break text up is to include visual media on your site. Images speak louder than words so they’re a really important asset to your site to promote your products or services. Ideally, use your own photos, but whether you use originals or stock images make sure they’re of good quality – you don’t want a blurry, oversized image to be representing your business.

Responsive design

Effective website design involves enabling the site to be compatible for use on a range of devices, including smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. If you’ve already got a Go Sitebuilder website you won’t need to worry about responsive design as everything you create is instantly responsive!

Responsive design, in a nutshell, means that your website will adjust in size to suit a particular device. This leaves your content clear and easy to read no matter what device it’s viewed upon. With many internet users now relying exclusively on smartphones for web viewing, this is a design element that is nowadays a necessity rather than a luxury if you don’t want to miss a potential audience!

You don’t have to be a professional designer to build a website with Go Sitebuilder. Our hand-crafted, beautiful website sections will have you online within minutes – so what are you waiting for? Get online today with a 14-day free trial!

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8 things to do before launching a new website

Side view of a person wearing a dark jumping sitting at a desk typing on their laptop

If you’ve just designed your new website; congratulations! Now you must be eager to launch and share it with the world. Here at Go Sitebuilder, we know how important the time leading up to launch can be. That’s why we’ve put together these 8 steps that will help you start off on the right foot and head towards success.

1. Target audience

Before you hit the button, it is important to know exactly who your target audience is. These are the people who are likely to interact with your business. It all comes down to your industry and services. For example, a company that offers electrical works would most commonly be accessed by home-owners and landlords, which would make this their target audience.

2. Market comparison

Seeing how your competitors have designed their website could be used as a key indicator of what works within your specific industry – along with what does not. However, we wouldn’t ever recommend that you copy your competitors! Use their information as a starting point in regards to design and the content, but make sure to keep things original and unique to you.

3. Content evaluation

Being mindful of the type of content you will be posting is really important to how your website will be laid out. You’ll need to make sure everything is easy to navigate and people can find exactly what they’re looking for. The more content you have, the more that will need to be done in terms of designing your website. Having more content also means there is more for clients to read and interact with when the website is live.

4. Website security

A secure website is a must. Clients should feel safe using your site and entering their personal details. Without a secure site, hackers can access the site, and thereby access your clients’ personal information. This could even lead to a breach of GDPR, so make sure to take precautions. One of the first steps should be to ‘switch on’ or purchase an SSL cert. If you have a Go Sitebuilder subscription, SLL is completely free!

5. Launch date

Setting a date for your launch puts a timestamp on your goal – meaning it is easier to see what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done by, in order to launch on your desired date. This also gives you time to shout from the rooftops and create some buzz about what you’ve got going on.

6. Quality check

Testing your website ahead of time will alert you of any issues with the design or functionality of the site, allowing you to fix these issues before launching it to the general public. Just take a couple of minutes to go through the links, photos, and buttons. If you don’t have a Go Sitebuilder website, you may need to run tests on mobile devices too!

7. Sample testing

Select a small number of your existing clients, or even friends and family, to test the site. This gives you the opportunity to note any technical issues while you’re also receiving feedback, from which you can use to tweak and optimise your site. There’s nothing more helpful than feedback.

8. Prepare for the next few months ahead

It’s essential you put some time aside in the near future to keep content updated. It’s important to keep pages and contact details up to date but having a steady flow of new content, like blogs or new products, helps to drive more traffic to your site and keeps existing customers coming back!

If you still haven’t got your business online, now is the perfect time! Try Go Sitebuilder free for 14-days and see just how easy it is to get your website up and running.

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What are the 5 best electrician website designs

An electrician standing on an extended cherry picker raising his arm towards a telegraph pole in the distance

Electrician websites are all over the internet, but there are some that truly stand out from the crowd. It can pay to examine what these businesses are doing that is working so well, so that you can emulate some principles and make them your own.

Website Templates for Electricians
One of Go Sitebuilder’s easy-to-use website builder templates

Here are some of the best in the world of electrician website designs for you to take a look at:

1. Teague Electric

Despite being a large company, Teague Electric prides itself on offering a personal service to its clients. Their website stands out with its playful background image and easy access to their latest blog posts. They have also carefully cropped their header photos to match their logo, adding real power to the branding. Note the Facebook badge and Twitter Feed at the bottom, calling attention to their social media.

2. Moran Electrical Contracting

This website stands out due to the quality of the photography throughout. This looks professional and makes the website attractive. They also list their specific service pages very well, making it very clear how they can help their customers. The inclusion of testimonials is also a great credibility piece.

3. Withrow Electric

This is a small, family-owned business that offers superb customer service and will take on any job, regardless of size. The bright colour pallet of their website immediately stands out to grab the visitor’s attention. The employee photos make the team feel friendly and approachable, and the company branding is really spot-on. Additionally, the cropped circular images give a distinctly modern feel.

4. Hardt Electric Inc.

This electrician website design feels very contemporary. It utilises modern fonts to make the text work as a part of the visual design. It is full of quality pictures, neatly organised and without making the site slow or clunky. The completed project gallery is a good tool to help customers see what they can do.

5. Weifield Group

This website displays company milestones that really call attention to the high standards they achieve. The crew of the month is a nice way of further emphasising the company’s focus on doing the best they can. The introductory videos are another great draw for traffic, and the ability to roll-over zoom on the photos makes it feel up to date.

It’s a good idea to stay abreast of website trends, particularly for sites in your niche. There are a lot of resources for this online, and at Go Sitebuilder we provide a website builder designed for businesses like yours – try it for free today.

Make your brand stand out by using some of these fantastic additions that the websites listed here have executed, and share your own website with the world.

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How to introduce a new website on social media

Close up of a laptop on a desk displaying a social media page. Also on the desk is a glass of water, a computer mouse and a pan.

A huge part of the success of marketing your new website could come down to its presence on social media. Read on to discover how social media can help to get your website noticed!

Create a social media presence

If you don’t already have your social media accounts set up for your business, then the launch of a new website is the perfect time to do so!

You should first decide which networks are the most suitable for your brand. For example, if you are a B2C business that sells visually enticing products, then Instagram could be the perfect platform for you. On the other hand, if you are a B2B company looking to work with some of the industry’s experts, then perhaps LinkedIn is the best platform for your business to be on.

Once you have decided on the platforms, create your accounts, selecting the same username across the platforms and filling out all the profile information, including placing your new website’s URL address in the main body of the profile.

Get followers

The next important step is to begin to gain a following. Do this by inviting your colleagues, friends, family and customers to follow your profile, as well as by creating posts with relevant hashtags and location tags to draw in users that could be interested in your business.

Ensure you post to your page on a regular basis, using a range of engaging and informative posts which include call-to-actions that drive users to your website.

Use paid ads to promote your website

All the major social media networks offer a variety of ad spend services that can promote website URLs. Whether you choose to boost a Facebook post, promote Pinterest pins or Instagram stories, there are a plethora of opportunities for you to select.

When using paid ads, you can select who sees your adverts based on their interests, location, age and much more. This will help the right people to see your website on their social feeds.

Create teasers

When launching your new site, it can be fun to drum up excitement by launching teaser images on your social media sites. You can blur, curtain or paste a ‘coming soon’ sticker over a screenshot of your website to get your followers excited.

Share customer testimonials

Once a few customers have used your service or purchased your products, you can ask them to send you a review and start sharing it on social media.

According to a recent YouGov poll, it is becoming clear that people trust other people’s opinions of products/services, rather than brands talking about how great their products are. Therefore, using customer testimonials on your social networks can be another way of driving more traffic to your new website. Make sure to include a CTA (call to action) to your website to drive people to where you’d like them to be.

Launching your new website is an exciting first step in growing your business. In today’s world, it’s crucial that every business has a professional online presence to succeed. If you’re considering your options for getting online, check out Go Sitebuilder for free! You won’t need to hire an expensive professional, and you won’t need to learn any new skills. Try it now and see just how easy it is to build your dream website.

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What to do after launching a website?

Female sat at a window next to some white flowers writing in a notebook.

Now that your website is up and running, you may be wondering ‘what’s next’? There are plenty of key tasks that you’ll want to get started on right after launching your site to help it become a success. Here are a few carefully selected actions that will help you get you started on the right path.

Keep creating new content

Flocks of visitors might have viewed your website on launch day, but now it’s important that you find ways to keep them coming back. One of the best ways to do this is to add new content regularly to your site. Set up a blog and get into the habit of publishing items that impart your insights and wisdom in a useful, informative and interesting way.

Whenever you do add new content to your fledgeling website, include social share buttons so that your readers can share it with your friends. This could get your content into the hands of hundreds or maybe even thousands of more people.

Not only is it good for your readers but, frequently providing fresh content is favoured by search engines too! It can help you to become more visible on search engines like Google.

Engage with your audience

Whether you’re a new business starting from scratch or an established company that has had a complete rebranding, after you’ve launched your site, it’s an ideal time to start engaging with your audiences. This is a powerful way to understand more about your target customers, but it also helps to keep viewers hooked on your brand.

Include options to capture email addresses on your site, and create a newsletter to keep customers updated on your products or services. Give viewers a chance to provide feedback, whether on the website, your social media pages or both. Whenever you get audience feedback, make sure to start a dialogue with them. This builds a rapport that can help turn first-time customers into loyal and repeat ones.

Get statistics savvy

One of the key ways to understand how well your new website is doing is to analyse statistics and trends, including who is visiting your site. It’s important to be on top of key factors such as when the visitors are coming, how often and which pages they’re going to. This is all really useful information that can give you important clues about your audiences, what is working well (or not) on your site, and what potential changes you might need to make to improve things. In order to analyse these trends, get set up with Google Analytics.

Remember that this should never be a one-off activity. You should monitor your website’s progress regularly to help you really understand what the customer experience is like.

If you’re yet to launch your website, why not check out Go Sitebuilder to see just how easy it is to create your own website. Sign up for a free 14-day trial – no credit card required – and get started on creating your dream website.

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How can I get my website on Google search?

How to get your website on Google

Submitting your website to the Google search engine is an important part of increasing your traffic. Once it is submitted, your site will appear on the Google search results page, but what you should be striving for is getting it to rank highly in your potential customers’ searches.

“Lots of my customers have commented on how easy it was to find and use my website – that wouldn’t be possible without Go Sitebuilder and my own domain name.” Polly Evans – pollyevanshypnotherapy.com

Here is a guide on getting your website to appear in Google searches:

Search Engine Optimisation

Better known as SEO, this is the process of optimising the content of your website to make it rank highly in Google search results without having to pay for it. It is good practice to optimise your website before submitting it to Google, but really it is an ongoing process that needs to be nurtured in the long run to see the best results.

Submitting a website to Google

Make sure you have covered all the basics of preparing your website to be indexed by Google. SEO is important, but it’s also essential to ensure there are no errors or broken links, and that content is ready to be shared on social media. When you’re good to go, you can submit your domain to the Google Search Console URL Crawler.

Every time they crawl the web, Google adds new sites to its index and updates existing ones. Tell them about your new URL through the link above. Please note that not all submitted URLs will be added to the index.

Google will also want your website sitemap. The purpose of this is to enable the Google robots to scan the structure of your site and index it to the search engine accordingly. If you’ve built your website with Go Site Builder, it will already be available to them and you won’t have to do anything extra to submit it.

Google Search Console

business owner with custom domain name

This service replaced the old Google Webmaster Tools to provide site owners with the means to monitor their site’s presence in the Google search results. Joining requires a Google account and a personal domain address. You simply add these as your property on the console and follow the steps to verify your site ownership.

The simplest method is to choose ‘URL prefix’, which should provide you with a code. Copy the code and paste it in into your website, and you should see a confirmation in Google Search Console shortly after.

The bottom line

Getting your website onto Google search should be a simple process. If you follow the steps in this guide, you will be up and running in no time. Go Sitebuilder provides the tools to make it even easier, and you can get started for free today.

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How do I attract customers to my website?

A small row of people all holding their mobile phones

Your beautiful website has been designed and published, and now you want to share it with your customers. We have some tried and tested techniques that will have you driving traffic to your website in no time! Here are some easy-to-follow strategies for attracting customers to your website:

Have a presence on social media

Let’s start with the most obvious one: social media. Creating pages about your business on relevant social media platforms can boost visitor numbers to your site. The beauty of making a name for yourself on social media is that it’s free. So, this is a worthwhile strategy for new or smaller businesses who may have limited advertising budgets. Include links on your social media pages to your website, and entice audiences to visit your site with offers, product information and updates.

Start a blog

Who doesn’t love a good read? Blogging is a great way to keep people coming back to your website. Writing a regular blog on subjects that you are an authority on will entice visitors back to your site again and again. It’s not only people that appreciate a well-written article, but search engines do too! Don’t forget to sneak in a few choice keywords into your content, as these can help send your site soaring on search listings.

When you give readers the option to comment or to share your blogs, this can also help you reach more people. Always make your blog content is relevant to your target audiences, offering them an insight into topics that they would find useful and interesting.

As well as blogging on your own site, consider providing a guest blog posting on another related and respected website, including a link to your web page so viewers can click through to your site.

Get SEO savvy

Using search engine optimisation strategies will allow your website to climb the ranks of search listings. This will help people find your site name easier. If your website makes it to the first page of search listings then it’s likely to be getting more clicks than if it were on any other page – that’s how important SEO is!

Some simple SEO tips that really make a difference include making sure you fill out the meta titles and descriptions on your pages and adding keywords that apply to your services throughout your site. It’s also important to keep your website’s information current, updated and relevant, as these are all attributes favoured by search engines.

If you’re new to SEO, we’ve created this easy guide for complete beginners. It’s honestly not as hard as it sounds!

Try Paid advertising

There are lots of free or budget-friendly strategies you can use to attract customers to your site, but if you want to get your website off the ground you might wish to consider paid advertising. Pay per click (PPC), for instance, is one commonly used option. By carefully selecting keywords relevant to your site, an advert for your website will appear online when people enter these keywords into a search engine. Clicking on the advert will then direct visitors to your site, helping to swell your audience numbers. It’s a quick and easy way to get people to you.

These are just some of the ways you can attract more customers to your website. Even if you try other ways of attracting customers, remember to use an analytics tool to make sure you know what works best for your business. There’s no point in repeating something that isn’t producing the results you want. Your time is precious so invest it wisely.

If you still haven’t created your dream site or you are thinking of starting something new, try Go Sitebuilder free for 14-days and see just how easy it is to build your own website – no pros or technical skills needed!

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How do I launch a new website on social media?

Close up of a mobile phone displaying some social media analytics. A green plant is in the foreground and background.

Whether you’re an established small business or you’re fresh off the starting blocks, in today’s world it all starts with a website. From there, it’s about getting the word out – and what better way than social media? It may seem like a simple case of creating a few profiles and watching the likes roll in, but the reality can be quite different. So, if you’re asking yourself how to launch your new website on social media, this quick guide is for you!

Step 1: Create your brand identity

One of the most common mistakes new businesses make when launching a social media presence is failing to stand out. With so many companies now utilising social media as a core marketing channel, it’s more important than ever to develop a true brand identity. Throwing a logo together in Microsoft Word simply won’t cut it, so be sure to take some time to build a brand that is visually consistent, engaging, and instantly recognisable – then update your profiles so they all reflect it. Be creative and choose a strategy that really represents your business and its values.

Step 2: Build a social media launch plan

Once you’re happy with the overall look of your profiles, it’s time to consider the ‘meat’ of your social media strategy – the content. Put simply, you can’t expect to set a page live and then see the follower numbers immediately skyrocket – it doesn’t always work that way. So, in order to support your launch, you’ll need to prepare the content you’ll be posting in the first weeks, or even months, of your new social profiles. This content could be blog posts on your new website (a great way to build traffic), videos, images (even fun things like memes), infographics, and so on.

Step 3: Incentivising new followers (the right way)

Okay, so let’s assume you’re up and running and you’re following a content calendar to drive visitors from your social channels to your website. What’s next? Well, you want those numbers to go up, of course! As we explained, the “build it and they will come” approach doesn’t work in today’s world. The key to building a social following for your website is incentivisation, at least at the beginning. These incentives can be anything you like, but one great option is to hold giveaways for small things (like gift vouchers) which won’t cost much but will drive engagement. Just don’t forget to ask people to like and follow to enter!

We hope this quick guide will help you hit the ground running when it comes to launching your website on social media. Of course, if you’re still in the early stages of launching your business and you haven’t yet built a website, there’s no better place to start than with our 14-day free trial of Go Sitebuilder.