Step by step
How to get a business online
The jobs that stand between an idea and a live site, written as steps you can follow in an afternoon rather than as advice about why a website matters.
- How to make a website for your businessYou do not need to write code, and you do not need to hire anyone, to get a first version up. What you do need is three things: a decision about what the site is for, a name you have actually checked, and about an afternoon of real photos and real sentences. This page walks you through the six steps in the order that works, and says what to check before you send the link to a customer.
- How to choose a domain nameA domain is rented by the year rather than bought, and the name on the account matters more than the name on the sign. Most first-time owners spend a week agonising over whether a name is clever and ten minutes on the two things that actually go wrong later: the renewal price nobody looked at, and the account it was registered in. Six steps follow, and every one of them ends with something you can check today.
- How to take photos for your websiteWhat gives a new business away is not the writing, it is the pictures. A visitor who recognises a stock photograph of somebody else’s shop has already decided you are not really open. The good news is that the phone in your pocket, used in the right light, takes photographs that are more than good enough for a first website. This page breaks the job into six steps: what to shoot, when to shoot it, how to set the camera, how to frame a picture that will have text sitting on top of it, how to choose between the frames, and what to do to a file before it goes anywhere near the site.
- How to write website copy for a small shopMost small shop websites fail on the words, not the design. They read like a brochure written for nobody in particular, when what a visitor wants is the answer to the question that made them look you up. This page turns the phone calls you already take into the outline of the site, then works through six steps in order: the question list, the three sentences at the top, services and prices written without flinching, captions that say something, one clear action, and a read-aloud pass that catches what your eye skips.