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Creating a website for SMEs: A comprehensive guide for beginners

WebSite X5
Published by Incomedia in Guides and Tips · Thursday 18 Jul 2024 ·  13:15
Not everyone likes numbers: I personally prefer words, which can evoke nuanced and emotional images in my mind. However, I must admit that numbers have the fantastic power to summarize and clarify reality.

That’s why, in this guide, we will rely on statistical data to understand why it is essential for small companies to have a website. But that’s not all: we will also provide information about the most efficient way to build the website for your business. Without touching a line of code and super quickly, of course!


The importance of websites for SMEs

Let’s start by saying that websites represent much more than a simple online business card or a printed flyer, including for SMEs.

A website is the perfect place to present your business and your products or services. But you can also do more: with a website, you can tell your story and share your vision; you can collect potential customers’ contact details and guide them through your sales process; you can provide support and assistance, helping to build a strong connection with your audience.



Ultimately, as many as 73% of SMEs already have a website. There must be a reason why almost 3 out of 4 businesses have invested in developing their own website: there wouldn’t be so many if there weren’t real benefits. Let’s find out more about these benefits.

Why should SMEs have a website?

Actually, there are many good reasons for small businesses to have their own website. Let’s use statistics to cover the most important ones.

Benefit #1 - Being found by local consumers. Data shows that as many as 99% of consumers use the Internet to look for local businesses. So, if you have a physical store, a website can significantly increase the possibility of finding new customers. Consider that 21% of consumers rely on the Internet daily to find new local businesses, and 35% do so every week. It would be a shame to miss the opportunity of being found!



Benefit #2 - Getting known and building trust. Other important data reports that 81% of consumers search for a company’s info online before choosing its services. This means that, even if customers already know a company, they tend to visit its website before interacting with it. But that’s not all: before buying, 55% of these customers look for online reviews of the company they are about to buy from and 47% directly visit the website to understand how reliable the company is. Without a well-designed website capable of confirming and reinforcing the customers’ favorable opinion of the company, there is a chance that they will continue to search online and eventually choose a competitor - a risk best not taken.

Benefit #3 - Sales channel. In 2021, the sales generated from online shops represented 19% of all retail sales worldwide, and e-commerce had reached a total volume of $5.2 trillion. This trend is for steady growth, and by 2026 e-commerce is estimated to reach $8.1 trillion, namely a 56% increase. Realistically speaking, the choice for businesses with a physical sales channel to miss the chance of operating online as well may turn out to be unsuccessful.

In short, for SMEs a website represents a better chance of being found by an interested clientele, presenting themselves in the right way, building a trusted relationship with the visitors, and significantly increasing the sales of their products and services.

However, if benefits are so significant, why is there still an important percentage of SMEs that don’t have a website?

Why is it wrong for SMEs to not have a website?

At least 27% of SMEs still don’t have a website and, considering how much we use the Internet on a daily basis, this can negatively affect their success.



2.35% of these companies plan to invest in creating a website in the near future, but what about the ones that still aren’t interested in taking this important step?

Here are the reasons given:

  • 27% think that websites aren’t important in their field;
  • 26% fear that the costs associated with the website creation will be too high or difficult to recoup if the traffic stays low;
  • 21% believe that social media are enough to compensate for the absence of the website;
  • 15% report not having enough technical skills required for creating or managing a website on their own.



However, a closer look into these arguments will show that none is a valid reason for small companies not having a website.

First of all, there are no fields for which websites aren’t important. Think about your own online searches: from handmade purses to ultra-customized presents, from 0-mile zucchini to tomatoes, there’s no limit to the imagination. Every existing activity has its own online niche.

As far as social media are concerned, they surely have their pros, since they are free and offer a certain level of visibility, but they are not enough. All best practices indicate that it is best to leverage social media for the traffic they can generate and to accompany them with a website to improve the relationship of trust with the customer and concretize sales. Don’t forget that we are still guests on social media, which means we have to follow their rules. On our website, on the other hand, we will be the hosts, free to do as we see fit.

Finally, let’s address the costs and skills matter. It is true that creating a website can sometimes be expensive, and it is also true that if you need to work on the code, the required technical skills can be quite specific. However, a lot depends on the tool you choose to create your website with. The good news is that it is possible to create a professional website on your own, with no programming skills and with a limited budget in terms of time and money you want to invest.

Let’s see how that’s possible.

Alternative solutions for creating a website

Often there are many ways to get the same result, and this is also the case when it comes to creating a website.
If you have a small company and you want to create a website, you can:

  • Rely on a Web Designer
    First, you can hire a professional to create a tailored website that reflects your company’s identity.
    PROS: High level of customization, Professional and unique result, Possibility of ongoing counseling and support
    CONS: High costs, Longer lead time, Dependence on the designer for future updates

  • Use a CMS (Content Management System)
    A popular alternative is using platforms such as WordPress, which offer the possibility of managing and updating the content on your own. You don’t need to know how to program with templates and plugins, and you can enjoy a good level of control.
    PROS: High flexibility and customization, Wide range of plugins and templates, Support based on the user community, Need to learn how to use them
    CONS: Possible costs for premium templates/plugins, Necessity for regular maintenance and updates

  • Use a Website Builder
    Solutions like WebSite X5 are ideal for those who have no technical skills. They offer drag-and-drop interfaces, preset templates, integrated SEO tools, hosting, and domain services. This way, you can create a professional website quickly and inexpensively.
    PROS: User-friendly drag-and-drop interface, Customizable templates, All-in-one solution including SEO, hosting, and domain ,No technical skills required
    CONS: Less customization possibility compared to using custom code

Now that we know that, with a builder like WebSite X5, anyone can create their own website in no time, inexpensively, and with the guarantee of achieving a professional-quality result, let’s see what the next steps are.

Planning your website: the basic steps

I know you can’t wait to start working on the website for your business, but before proceeding, it is important for you to take some time to carefully plan some key aspects:

  • Define the goals you want to achieve: Do you want to boost your sales? Offer insights about your services? Collect new leads?
    Try to identify a main goal as well as some secondary goals. Knowing precisely what you want to achieve will help you understand what to say on your website pages and how to organize them. The clearer you are, the faster you will proceed in development.

  • Identify your target audience: Who are your ideal customers? What do they look for online? What are their needs?
    Even if you are targeting a very broad audience, avoid generic answers. Only by knowing your audience thoroughly will you be able to identify the right tone of voice to use and understand how you can better respond to their needs, consequently increasing your chance of success.

  • Create a sitemap: What pages should be included in your website? How should navigation paths be organized? What should they aim for?
    By knowing your audience and your goals, it will be easier for you to identify the important details, report them on the right pages (Home, About, Services, Blog, Contacts, etc.), and organize them in a tree structure based on coherent navigation paths.

An additional tip: don’t underestimate the importance of this planning phase. Investing time to reflect and make the right decisions will help you proceed faster in the following phases of the website creation, resulting in a website that really does guarantee the results you are hoping for.

Design and Layout: looks also matter

It’s finally time to start creating your website. Thanks to the preliminary planning phase, you now know what to say, how to say it, what pages you need, and how they must be organized in the navigation paths. Now, you need to set everything up so that the overall design of your website looks appealing and functional.

It's easy to see how important it is for your site to look appealing and effective, but here are some statistics to underscore this fact, just in case.

Firstly, many users consider the appearance of a website as a reflection of the company’s reliability itself. In their eyes, an unattractive website corresponds to an unreliable business. 38.5% of visitors tend to develop an option on a company based on their experience with its website.

Moreover, 38% of customers will stop interacting with a website if it doesn’t have an appealing design. After all, with so many choices available online, consumers can easily move on to another site if they find one unappealing.
Because of this, the style of a website is as important as the information it presents or the products themselves.

If you aren’t a design expert, however, the best solution to get professional-looking pages is to choose a good template.

With WebSite X5, for instance, you can proceed as follows:

  • Choose a template: you can rely on hundreds of professional templates you can choose from. Find the one that better suits your company.

  • Customize the layout: you can customize any template as you want, from colors to fonts and images, to make it unique and personalized.

  • Make sure it is responsive: all templates are optimized for mobile devices. Moreover, you have all the necessary tools to manage the behavior of the elements for the different resolutions.

Don’t underestimate the mobile optimization. Consider that already in 2020, 61% of website traffic was generated from mobile devices, and nowadays 54% of users place orders using their smartphones. These are certainly not numbers to be overlooked!

Contents and SEO: two must-haves

Let’s now focus for a moment on your website’s content. It’s easy to understand how crucial quality content is, not only for attracting and keeping the attention, but also for informing educating, and convincing them to take desired actions such as subscribing, making a purchase, leaving a review, etc.

As we discussed in a previous article, not all contents are the same: each has its own characteristics and serves specific purposes.

  • Texts: They are THE quintessential content and can be used for many different purposes. They must be written in a simple and fluent tone, consistent with the overall website style. It’s crucial for texts to follow the SEO rules to achieve better ranking on Search engines. Remember: 70% of website traffic comes from Google.

  • Images: Images are essential; they should be relevant and of high quality to enhance the website’s appeal and support textual content by conveying the right emotions. Images must also be optimized to ensure they don’t slow down the page loading speed. Most users, in fact, expect pages to load within 2 seconds, and nearly 40% will leave slow-loading websites.

  • Videos: Videos are highly effective and potentially viral content that can be used for telling stories with high emotional impact, for sharing the values connected to a brand, for presenting products/services, and for providing support. Surely, creating videos requires additional investment, but, at the end of the day, it is very likely to pay off: in fact, users spend 88% more time browsing web pages with video content.

In addition to texts, images, and videos, you can also enrich your pages with animations, infographics, podcasts, or other audio content: consider them as ingredients you can rely on to bring different formats to life.

Publishing your website: finally online

Once the design and the contents are ready, you can go on and export your website online.

If you opt for an all-in-one solution like WebSite X5, you already have hosting and domain included for free for 12 months: in this way, even going online becomes a quick and easy task. With just a few clicks, you can see the website you created online, ready to welcome your next visitors.

Now that it’s live, consider your website as a partner working for you to achieve your goals. So, don’t forget about it: take care of it and update it regularly, keep it aligned with your business’s evolution, and, above all, make sure that it always meets the needs and tastes of your audience. This is the best way to ensure its effectiveness over time.

Try WebSite X5 now

Creating a website for your small business may sound like a difficult task, but, as we demonstrated earlier with our data, it is absolutely worth it. Moreover, with WebSite X5 anyone can do it.

Our all-in-one solution provides everything you need, from the planning to the publishing, without requiring subscription fees or advanced technical skills.

Try WebSite X5 now! Download the trial version and start building your website right away.


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