Setting Up Your Business Online

A Practical Guide for Small Business Owners

Establishing your first business website can seem surprisingly complicated.

You may start out thinking you simply need someone to design a few attractive pages. Before long, however, you are hearing about domain names, hosting, DNS, SSL certificates, business email, search engines, social media, privacy policies and analytics.

The good news is that you do not need to become a web developer to establish a good business website.

You should, however, understand the basic components, make some important business decisions before development starts, and make sure your business retains control of its important digital assets.

This guide explains the process in practical, non-technical terms.

1. First decide what you want the website to do

Start with the business requirement, not the technology.

Who is the website for? What do you want visitors to learn about your business? Most importantly, what do you want them to be able to do?

For some businesses, the requirement may be quite simple. The website explains the business and its services and gives potential customers an easy way to make contact.

Other businesses may need considerably more functionality. For example, you may want customers to request a quotation; make an appointment or reservation; complete an enquiry form; upload information or documents; create an account; subscribe to a service or mailing list; download documents or other resources; make a payment; or purchase products through an online shop.

If you need an online shop, there are additional decisions to make. These can include the e-commerce platform, payment processing, product descriptions and photographs, inventory management, GST, shipping and delivery, returns and refunds, and how customer information will be collected and protected.

A professional services business may only need a relatively simple informational website. A retailer may require a complete e-commerce solution.

Don't pay to build functionality you don't need. Start by defining the business requirement, then choose the technology.

2. Show your developer what you like

Your website developer is not a mind reader.

Before asking someone to design your website, spend some time looking at other websites. Find two or three that you like and give those examples to your developer.

They don't necessarily need to be competitors or even businesses in the same industry.

More importantly, explain what you like about them. Perhaps you like the simple navigation on one site, the photographs on another and the clean page layout of a third. You might like a particular use of colour, large amounts of white space, short pages, prominent menus or a particular way of presenting services.

It can be equally useful to show your developer websites you don't like and explain why.

You are not asking the developer to copy another website. You are giving them a visual indication of what you have in mind.

Doing this at the beginning can save considerable time and reduce rounds of revisions later.

3. You know your business - prepare the content

The same principle applies to the words on the website.

A good developer knows how to build websites. They do not automatically know your business.

Before development starts, prepare at least a rough draft explaining what your company does; who your customers are; what products or services you offer; how customers work with you; what makes the business different; who is behind the company; how customers should contact you; and the questions potential customers commonly ask.

It does not need to be beautifully written at this stage. The material can be edited and refined later.

What matters is that the information comes from the people who actually understand the business.

Good source material and clear direction usually produce a much better website than asking a developer to guess what the company wants to say.

4. Choose your domain name - and make sure you own it

Your domain name is the internet address for your business, such as yourbusiness.com.au.

Domains are registered through companies known as domain registrars.

There are many providers. Australian businesses might encounter companies such as VentraIP, GoDaddy, Cloudflare Registrar, Squarespace Domains and numerous others. These are examples rather than recommendations, and prices and services should be compared before choosing a provider.

Before registering a domain, consider which extension is appropriate. An Australian business may, for example, consider .com.au, while .com is widely used internationally. Different domain extensions can have different eligibility and registration requirements.

One of the most important points is also one of the simplest: your business should control its own domain.

Ideally, establish the registrar account in the business's name, using contact and recovery details controlled by the business. Your developer can be given whatever technical access is necessary to configure the website.

That is different from allowing the developer to own one of your business's most important digital assets. If you later change web developers, you should not have to negotiate to regain control of your own domain.

Also make sure you know when the domain expires. Enable automatic renewal where appropriate and keep payment and contact information current.

5. Domain, hosting and DNS are not the same thing

This is one of the areas that can initially seem confusing.

In simple terms: Domain — the address people type to find you. Website hosting — where the website itself is located. DNS — the set of directions that tells internet traffic where the different services associated with your domain should go.

Your business email may use the same domain while being provided by an entirely different service.

A simple way of picturing it is: Your Domain → DNS (the directions) → Website → Website Hosting, while another set of directions may send yourname@yourbusiness.com.au → Business Email Provider.

You do not need to know how to configure all of this yourself. You should simply understand that these are separate components and know which companies provide them and who controls the accounts.

6. Set up proper business email

A business domain also allows you to use professional email addresses such as name@yourbusiness.com.au rather than relying entirely on a personal Gmail, Outlook or other consumer email account.

Services such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace can provide business email and related productivity tools.

As with the domain, the business should retain administrative control of the account. Use multi-factor authentication, maintain appropriate recovery information and make sure the business is not dependent upon one employee or outside consultant to regain access.

7. Give your developer access - not your business

Your developer may need considerable access to your systems. That is normal.

But there is an important distinction between giving somebody access to an account and giving them ownership of it.

Where practical, the business should retain ultimate control over important digital assets such as the domain, DNS, website hosting, website administration, business email, analytics, search-engine tools and business social-media accounts.

Developers, IT specialists and social-media managers can then be provided with the access they need to do their jobs. This also makes changing providers much easier later.

8. Connect your website to the rest of your online presence

Your website should generally become the central online home for your business.

Depending upon your customers, you might also establish a presence on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, X or other platforms.

You do not need to create an account on every social-media platform simply because it exists. Concentrate on the channels that are actually relevant to your customers and business.

Where you do use social media, use a consistent business name and logo; use consistent descriptions and contact details; include your website address in your social-media profiles; and add appropriate links from your website back to those accounts.

For LinkedIn, for example, consider establishing a company page rather than relying solely upon an owner's personal profile. Employees can then associate their profiles with the company, while the company maintains its own presence.

The same ownership principle applies here as elsewhere. Wherever possible, the business should own and control its social-media accounts. Staff or outside social-media managers can be given appropriate access.

For businesses where local search is important, a Google Business Profile may also help connect the business's website, contact information and location with its presence in Google Search and Maps.

9. A website going live doesn't mean Google will immediately find it

You have launched the website. You search for your company on Google. And it isn't there.

That does not necessarily mean anything is wrong.

Search engines need to discover and index new websites. There are also some basic steps that can help search engines understand what your website is about.

These can include setting up Google Search Console; ensuring the website has an appropriate sitemap; checking that important pages can be indexed; using sensible page titles and descriptions; using clear headings and relevant content; establishing a Google Business Profile where appropriate; and monitoring website traffic and search performance.

This is the beginning of search engine optimisation, or SEO.

SEO can become highly technical, but a small-business owner does not need to become an SEO specialist. At minimum, make sure the basic search-engine setup is part of the website project rather than assuming that publishing the site completes the job.

10. Don't forget the boring stuff

The photographs, colours, clever wording and online store may be the interesting parts of creating a website. Unfortunately, they are not the only parts.

A business website is a public-facing business activity and should be treated like one from a risk-management perspective.

Depending upon your business and what the website does, you may need to consider a privacy policy and appropriate privacy notices; website terms of use; terms applying to online sales; returns and refunds; shipping and delivery information; copyright; permission to use photographs, logos and other content; cookies and tracking technologies; security; SSL/HTTPS; accessibility; backups; software updates; and what information your contact forms collect and where it goes.

A simple informational website and an online shop collecting customer information and payments present quite different issues.

The documents and controls you require will depend upon what your business does, where it operates, what information it collects and how the website functions.

And be careful about simply copying another company's privacy policy or website terms. Their circumstances may be very different from yours.

The boring parts of your website may turn out to be some of the most important.

11. Before you go live - actually test it

Don't assume that because the website looks finished, everything works.

Before launch, go through it like a customer.

Read every page. Click every button and link. Submit the contact form and make sure the enquiry actually arrives. Click the email addresses. Test the social-media links.

Look at the website on a desktop computer and on a mobile phone.

Check names, telephone numbers, email addresses, addresses, prices and other important information.

Make sure the privacy policy and terms links work. Confirm the site is using HTTPS.

And finally, make sure the business itself has the administrative access and account information it needs.

Going live is not the same as being finished.

12. Keep looking after it

A website is an ongoing business asset.

After launch, periodically make sure the domain is being renewed; keep software and security up to date; maintain appropriate backups; test important forms and links; update contact details; remove outdated information; add useful new content; monitor search performance; and review website analytics.

You don't necessarily need to do all of this yourself. You simply need to make sure somebody is responsible for it.

Your Business Website Checklist

Business purpose

• ☐Do we know exactly what we want visitors to learn and do?
• ☐Have we identified any online-shop, booking, payment or other functionality?

Design and content

• ☐Have we shown the developer examples of websites we like?
• ☐Have we provided the developer with proper information about our business?
• ☐Have we reviewed and approved the final content?

Ownership

• ☐Does the business control the domain?
• ☐Do we know who provides our DNS and hosting?
• ☐Does the business have administrative access?
• ☐Is multi-factor authentication enabled where appropriate?
• ☐Do we have appropriate recovery information?

Online presence

• ☐Is our website linked to the social-media channels we actually use?
• ☐Do those accounts link back to our website?
• ☐Is our business information consistent across them?

Search

• ☐Have the basic search and indexing steps been completed?
• ☐Do we have access to our search and analytics information?

Risk management

• ☐Have we considered privacy, website terms, e-commerce terms where applicable, security, copyright and permissions, backups and ongoing maintenance?

Testing

• ☐Have we tested every important link and form?
• ☐Have we checked the site on a mobile phone?
• ☐Have we confirmed where customer enquiries actually go?

Keep a Simple Digital Assets Register

Finally, keep a basic record of the important components of your online presence. Do not put passwords in this register.

The objective isn't to become an expert in websites. It is to understand what your business owns, what services you are paying for, who has access to them, and what needs to be maintained.

Your developer and other specialists can take care of the technical work. You should remain in control of the business.