What does it Take to Build a Start-Up Business Website?

A website is a must have channel for any business. When it comes to a start-up it is even more critical to have a web presence from day one because you are not going to have resources to build a brick-n-mortar channel nor the marketing budget to spend. There are several approaches you can take to host the website, ranging from dedicated self managed hosting, to managed outsources services to virtual private service such as the one provided by best VPS web hosting. But what does it take to build a website in the first place? Read on to understand some of the steps involved.

Determine Your Website’s Purpose

Start off by deciding whether you want to simply provide your customers with information or if you want to add articles on a regular basis or sell your products or services online. This information will serve as a guide as you move on to develop your website.

Choose Your Web Content Management System

Once you know what you want to do with your website you can choose the software you’ll use. Many content management systems (CMS) are free and you’ll only pay a small amount more for any add-ons you may need.

When developing an e-commerce site for your products, you’ll want to choose between VirtueMart, Magento, osCommerce, OpenCart and Joomla. All of these have templates you can choose from which will affect both their appearance and their functionality. Another really popular one many people use today is WordPress. The main difference between it and Joomla is you have blogging capabilities with WordPress.

Find a Web Host

Next, you’ll need to find a remote location where you can host your website. You can think of this as a storefront. The reason you want to choose this after you’ve chosen your CMS is because you want to make sure your host supports the CMS you’ve chosen. Also, see if your host will set up your CMS for you as this makes it easier on you.