Today, it has almost become essential for a company to have its own website. Whether it is simply presenting the company and its activities, or having a real economic activity online, an internet presence is essential. If you are starting your own business, you will most certainly need to design your website.

Domain name, hosting and trademark registration

Before designing your business website, you must find a domain name: www. "domain name ". “Desired extension” (.fr, .com…). The chosen domain name can be linked to several parameters. It can be used to identify your business or a product you sell or match your company's trade name.

SSL certificate is essential

Today, it is recommended to use an SSL certificate for your website; the url must start with "https". Otherwise, internet browsers will indicate that your website is not secure. The SSL certificate is essential if you have an activity of selling products or services online.

Design of your corporate wsitebe

Once you have a domain name and hosting, you can move on to designing your business website. You have several solutions for this. First of all, you will need to establish a specification.

In any case, if you have little or no knowledge of website development, we recommend that you go through a professional. Indeed, your website will be the digital showcase of your business. In your interests, therefore, it must be perfectly designed.

Writing specifications and designing a website can take several months. We must, therefore anticipate and do it in advance.

Establish the specifications for your website

The first step in the design of a business website is the drafting of the specifications. In this document, you must explain, as precisely as possible, everything you want at the level of your corporate website. This work involves, in particular explaining everything you want from a graphic, technical and functional point of view.

This step is not easy to perform. However, these specifications are essential for the web agency that will develop your business website.

The legal framework of your corporate website

Once the development of your website comes to an end, it will be necessary to set up its legal framework. Here, the goal is to integrate all the legal tools necessary for your business website to be in full compliance with the law.

Considering the importance of the legal framework of your corporate website, in particular, if you collect and process data, and/or if you have an online sales activity, we advise you to be assisted by a lawyer to legally secure your business.

You have the aspiration of being the owner of your own business, you are an expert in Web Development, you have some clients, a lot of ideas, but you are not sure how to start? 

Here are some ideas to help you get off the ground:

1. It offers services that are not covered by the software for sale for the client to build their own sites and that do not require programming. It offers sites with a database, or with exclusive designs for the client, or with complex forms. The important thing is that you stay away from offering services that sites like Word Press, for example, offer for free, or that people with few skills offer at very low cost.
2. Focus on customers who are aware of the importance of their website in the process of getting customers. It is more productive to work with these types of clients who already know that their website has a decisive role in the business, to start by convincing the client of the value of their page.
3. Try to find clients who have enough budget to cover the cost of a quality page. Usually, businesses that already have a certain level of development are more attractive to grow your own business.
4. Make yourself known, create your business network in the area where you want to get clients. Research the pages of your network members and offer them your services. Be careful not to offend them with negative comments on your current page. It is possible that on some occasion they have designed it themselves or a family member or friend who did not charge for the services. Only offer them your services if they want to improve the functionality or update the “look & feel”.
5. Ask your satisfied customers for referrals. As you build your brand, you have to shore up your reputation with positive references and concrete projects.
6. Connect with other Developers, because they can give you references to cover services that they cannot provide, and vice versa. If you generate business for others, they will generate business for you. Agree to be outsourced and outsource yourself at the same time.
7. If you do not have your own projects to publish on your website, offer to work “pro bono” for some clients or non-profit institutions, so that you can show a good (and diverse) portfolio to potential clients.
8. Offer your freelancer services to other Web Development companies, to generate a working capital in your beginnings, in addition to accumulating professional references for your clients.

In short, be flexible and take advantage of the opportunities that arise. Building a business takes time and dedication, but it brings unparalleled satisfaction.

Creating a website can be a complicated process. Choosing the best web design company is a very important decision for your business website. And if your business is similar to most small businesses, you have no web design experience.

1. Ask what type of web experience they have?

First, determine what type of experience your potential web design company has. Make sure they have experience with CRM and raw HTML. Has the web design company designed websites like yours? Do they have relevant experience in this field?

2. Can I review your portfolio?

An experienced web design company has a good portfolio of websites that are created for other clients. Ask for links to another website created by a design company and analyze them all. Do you like what you see? Do you like the styles used on the website?

3. Do you have a reference?

In addition to reviewing websites, also ask for customer feedback and referrals. Were they satisfied with the results? Did they get value for their money? How much did they pay? Would you recommend them? How long did it take? What did they not like about the business?

4. What are your prices?

Never sign a contract if you do not know all the costs well enough in advance. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or website to web search engine users. SEO refers to improving the results of unpaid results (known as "natural" or "organic") and eliminates direct traffic/visitors and paid placement. In particular, SEO is related to the search engine.

Ask them a bit about how they handle payments. If they respond in a very professional way, that's a good sign. If they reject answers such as “Don’t worry, we’ll get along” or “With what you feel comfortable with,” don’t be fooled. There might be future problems. Ensure the price is in black and white before starting the project.

5. Do you have experience in search engine optimization?

Most small business owners do not have an independent marketing company for search engine optimization (SEO) to operate within their budget. Therefore, it is imperative that your web designer has SEO experience. A good web designer will surely understand that SEO and web design go hand in hand. It is important to design a website that is suitable for indexing by search engines and Bing.

6. Do you have experience in social media marketing?

Be sure to work with a web design company that knows how to set up a Facebook fan page for your business, create a good Instagram business account, and create a custom Twitter profile. This is important because you want the attributes of your social network to match the design of your site. The site and the pages of social networks must complement each other.

The questions above may seem strange and too simple, but it's important that you ask these questions if you want to hire the best web design company. Don't just hire a company for your web design; make sure that the company has the necessary experience to get the information you want. Never settle for less, just work with a reputable web design company just a click away.

A specific team leader, supervisor, director, or supervisor is a career option that many web designers pursue. After years of designing and developing websites, and probably mentoring and teaching others, taking a formal leadership position is a logical step in an online career. However, just because someone can create successful websites does not necessarily mean that they have the leadership skills needed to achieve this new role as a team leader. The skills needed for a successful designer or developer are different from the leaders and team leaders who need success. In this article, we explore some tips and best practices that online professionals take in leading positions in their organizations to successfully use their new position.

Know when and how to delegate

Learning new web team leaders is one of the hardest lessons of not being able to do it on your own. They must be prepared and willing to delegate tasks to other members of their team. Even if you know you can do something else for half an hour to do it, you can't take on every task. An important part of leadership is to ensure that your team is thoroughly supported and that they are allowed to learn and develop their skills. This is the perfect blend for our next item ...

Let people make mistakes.

Delegating tasks to other team members is important, but you must also allow them to make mistakes and thus learn from those mistakes. Being on time and doing work is tempted to push someone aside and solve the problem yourself (or do it yourself in the first place), but if you do, your team members will never learn. You must not only allow them to make mistakes, but you must ensure that it is OK in making them. As long as you have a mechanism to test your work before releasing it to the world, simple mistakes can be important learning modules in your development of web-based professionals.

Remember that as a leader, you are no longer judged only by your job skills, but also by the actors you lead. By allowing them to learn and grow, you will ultimately benefit both the company as a whole and your career - and by delegating less important tasks to team members, you are free to do the more important work that accompanies management.

Get out of the office.

It's so easy to do, but taking an hour out of your office with your team and buying lunch is one of the best ways to create a positive attitude and build a better working relationship. A team that enjoys each other as people is much more likely to work well together, so no matter how many things there are, get in touch with real people outside the office environment for a while.

Lead by example

Your team will take your sticker on you and your behaviour. As such, your day will not be negative. This means there are no breaking customers or complaints about projects. It also means that there are no rumours about other employees or job issues. Yes, you have a person, and you have bad and deceptive days, but as a leader, if you have a negative attitude, you should expect your team to reflect the same negativity. On the contrary, if you maintain a positive attitude, especially when things become uncertain, your team will follow your example.

Encourage others to lead and teach.

Teaching does not end with your responsibilities. Your team members should know that they also have a responsibility to teach others. When they attend a web conference or read a great article, they should be willing to share that knowledge with the rest of the team and guide others as needed.

Some web design projects do better than others. One of the most important ways you can get your project off to a good start is to focus on the relationship with your web designer.

Web designers and clients often do not speak the same language. This can lead to erroneous expectations that put projects at a standstill and cause one or both parties to let themselves down, even to commit scams.

Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your client-web designer relationship and make sure your project runs smoothly from start to finish.

Never approach a web designer saying "It's just a simple job."

Because there are many tools for creating websites, many small business owners and businesses think that a custom website can be created with little effort. True, these template builders have gotten better, and we have a list of our favourites that you can review. If you have decided to hire web designers, it is likely that your project will require a dedicated web professional. It's best to start on the right foot and realize that your site is complex and you need help launching it.

The difficulty and time it takes to design a website or perform web-related tasks is best decided by your web designers. After taking the time to find and hire the best web designer for your project, you should know your skills. Their experience and portfolio examples should show that they have invested a lot of time and energy in the craft - trust them to assess the difficulty of the work and the time it takes to complete it.

And even if the job doesn't take more than ten minutes to complete, you should understand the knowledge, training, and experience needed to get a complex code change in a relatively short amount of time. If you have the experience to save your time and make sure it's done correctly with the latest best practices, it should be seen as an added value, not a punishment for the web designer or a sign that the job is indeed "easy".

Keep the end of the deal.

Throughout your web design project, you will find the things your web designer needs from you. It is best to discuss the content, graphics, branding, or additional information that your web designer may need during the interview. This way, you can be sure that you have everything your web designer needs to get your project off to a smooth start.

Take the time to collect additional items that are expected of you, such as images, text content, proxies to access files hosted on your website, or paid themes and plug-ins that you have purchased for this site.

Don't rush the web design process.

As a customer, you would like your new website ready in a few weeks. Maybe you have budget constraints, or your business needs a website up and running right away.

Rushing a web design project increases the risk that we will reach sub-products.

Quality work takes time. Your web designer needs time, not only practical time to design and code but also time to evaluate different solutions and outline the approach that best suits your business needs.

Managing a website is often complex, and standing out among a plethora of other websites in the same domain is a headache. Too much content, not enough, ... not the right keywords, no virality, ... argh! Whether you are self-employed, or in a service specializing in web management, there are a few tips to know to gain visibility in search results and notoriety in the eyes of users.

Your website stands out by offering original content.

One of the first tools at your disposal is ... to be yourself to offer original content. Differentiate your website from others by what makes you different: the topic in which you are passionate, expert or just interested. This can be found in the name of your website, in your branding, in your writing style, in the images and videos you showcase and in all the other services you offer on your web portal.

The first virtue of this advice is to locate yourself in a domain to better understand yourself, and to understand the environment of your Web application. This optimizes the click-through rate in searches and minimizes the bounce rate. Be creative, and above all, be yourself!

Offer content that resembles you, that is to say, that is unique like you. Don't try to do like other websites at all costs. Your point of view matters, it is surely relevant and full of meaning; it will be important to your site visitors. Original content can translate into analyzes on subjects specific to your expertise: sources different from other sites, different services offered and above all ... add your touch (notes of humour, precision, etc.). This last point is very important; it is the humanization of the content: what will make you choose yourself over another. Do not hesitate to use humour; in moderation; it is always positive.

Offer regular content with a maximum of interactions.

The regularity is also paramount, it is what allows keeping your website alive, to date, to stand out from all those who stopped to feed their own. This will keep you in the news, in the heads of your loyal readers who will become influencers and you can become an active reference, perhaps even an influencer.

The goal is to offer interaction. Your website should be a place of sharing and expression. The "comment" space is important, but it's not just that: chatbot, sharing, CTA, UGC and so many other interactive features are available to you to engage your visitors.

Be clear and concise.

This advice aims to be equally beneficial for you, your community (your influencers) and the environment (the planet). Being light in your content proposal will allow you not to get too lost in too much content and, the lightness of the published content or “Slow Content” in a web application is the key when looking to design a more eco-responsible site.

Also, by being too "wordy" (blog posts that never end) or too present (a newsletter that arrives every two days), you will end up boring your audience or even convey a negative image of your brand.

Conclusion: a good SEO / SMO strategy

Finally, to stand out from other websites, the key lies in the proper use of a combined SMO (social network optimization) and SEO (i.e. natural referencing strategies) strategy. The goal is to raise your portal invisibility and your brand in notoriety. To do this, you must for each content publication, choose your keywords in line with your overall digital strategy. Observe the current trends in your field to follow them, or on the contrary, choose another axis of presentation. Use free tools like Google Trends, Google Analytics or even Google Search Console.

In short, a multitude of concrete actions is available to you to stand out from other websites. Think of everything, using lists, but the most important thing is to have fun! Sharing your knowledge or thoughts should make you happy, and it shows as a reader. Remember, you need to bring your personal touch and believe in it. It's your turn!