Small business owners should consider building an online presence, including a business website. A survey found that 83% of small businesses have a dedicated website, while nearly three quarters of the remaining businesses plan to invest in building a website. A strong website gives a small business more visibility, credibility, and customer engagement—all of which can increase sales.

Below, we’ll explain why websites are important and how to plan, design, and build a small business website that will attract customers.

What’s in this article?

• Why websites are important for small businesses
  
• How to create a website for a small business
  
• What to do after your website goes live
  
• How Stripe Atlas can help
  

Why websites are important for small businesses

Small businesses with websites can more easily engage with customers, make online sales, and collect data on current and potential customers. Here’s a closer look at the reasons why websites are important for small businesses.

• Online visibility and accessibility
  A website is consistently available, so customers can find and engage with a business whenever is convenient for them. Customers expect immediate, round-the-clock access to information and services.

• Credibility and professionalism
  A professional website is often the first indicator of a business’s legitimacy that customers see. Potential customers might question the business’s credibility if they can’t find a business website.

• Marketing and branding
  A website allows a business to control its narrative and brand image. It’s a platform to explain the value the business delivers, share customer testimonials, and showcase products or services effectively.

• Customer engagement and support
  A website serves as a central hub for customer support, information about products, services, contact details, and hours of operation, which makes it easier for customers to get the information they need.

• Sales and revenue growth
  Businesses that sell products can add an online store to their website. This generates ecommerce opportunities and expands the business’s sales channels for revenue growth.

• Data collection and customer insights
  Website analytics tools can collect valuable data on visitor behavior, preferences, and demographics. The insights gained from website analytics allow small businesses to create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.

How to create a website for a small business

Small businesses that are considering whether to create a website should start by thinking about their goals and what types of customers they want to attract. Next, they should choose the right platform, domain name, and web host. Here’s an overview of how to create a small business website.

1. Plan your website strategy

Building a successful small business website begins with a strategic plan that defines clear objectives, analyzes competitor sites, and aligns with the target audience's online behaviors. To establish a strong foundation, businesses must integrate consistent branding elements into a logical site structure while budgeting for essential costs like hosting, maintenance, and future scalability. Finally, managing the project effectively requires setting a realistic launch timeline and weighing the cost-to-quality tradeoffs of a DIY approach versus hiring professional developers.

2. Choose the right platform for your website

Selecting the ideal website platform requires aligning your business model with the right system type, whether that means a flexible content management system (CMS) like WordPress, a user-friendly website builder like Wix, or a sales-focused ecommerce platform like Shopify. To make an informed choice, businesses should weigh their technical skill level and customization needs against long-term operational factors like costs, security, scalability, and mobile responsiveness. Ultimately, prioritizing platforms that offer robust SEO capabilities and seamless third-party software integrations ensures the infrastructure can support sustained business growth. Many platforms offer free trials, which allow you to test drive them before committing.

3. Register a domain name

Selecting a website domain name requires choosing a short, memorable, and relevant address that aligns with long-term branding while avoiding numbers, hyphens, and trademark conflicts. After researching availability on registrars like GoDaddy or Namecheap, businesses should select an intuitive domain extension that fits their industry and location, such as .com. Once the primary domain is secured through a reliable registrar, purchasing similar domain variations protects the brand identity from user typos and competitor encroachment.

4. Select a web host

Evaluating web hosting services requires matching your site’s expected traffic and resource needs with the appropriate infrastructure, whether that means cost-effective shared hosting, resource-dedicated VPS hosting, maximum-performance dedicated servers, or highly flexible cloud hosting. To ensure continuous online accessibility and optimal SEO, businesses must prioritize providers with proven track records for high uptime and fast loading speeds. Selecting the right host involves balancing transparent pricing against essential operational guardrails, including 24/7 customer support, robust security protocols like malware scanning and firewalls, and the seamless ability to accommodate future scalability.

5. Design your website

Optimizing website design requires creating an intuitive, user-friendly layout with a clear visual hierarchy and consistent styling across all pages to ensure a seamless user experience (UX). To expand market reach and build immediate credibility, the design must prioritize responsive mobile layouts, fast loading speeds, and robust accessibility standards while integrating high-quality optimized visuals and social proof like customer testimonials. Aligning cohesive branding elements with long-term scalability guarantees a polished online presence that drives audience engagement effectively.

6. Create strong content

Developing impactful website content requires establishing a consistent brand voice that directly addresses your audience’s specific needs and pain points. To maximize engagement and authority, businesses must prioritize high-quality, professionally edited copy organized into a clear structural hierarchy for effortless scanning. Incorporating varied, shareable formats – including multimedia elements and strategic brand storytelling – deepens customer connections, while customer testimonials provide essential social proof. Keeping information fresh and embedding persuasive calls-to-action (CTAs) ensures visitors are consistently guided toward meaningful conversions.

7. Integrate key features and functionalities

Integrating the right features and functionalities into your small business website can significantly improve user experience, efficiency, and overall effectiveness. To optimize operational efficiency, platforms should display clear contact information, integrate social media channels, and deploy analytics tracking alongside CRM systems to monitor customer data. Incorporating secure ecommerce capabilities and automated email signup forms drives revenue and long-term marketing growth, while showcasing testimonials and trust badges establishes market credibility. Finally, embedding a supportive FAQ section, accessibility features for inclusivity, and multilingual support ensures the website remains functional and welcoming to a diverse, global audience.

8. Optimize for search engines

Optimizing a small business website for search engines requires combining strategic keyword research and high-quality content with rigorous technical execution to drive organic traffic. On-page elements must be meticulously structured, embedding targeted terms naturally into headers, unique URLs, and image alt tags, while the underlying technical architecture prioritizes mobile responsiveness, fast page load speeds, and data-securing SSL encryption. Businesses can amplify their reach by securing high-quality backlinks, deploying structured data markup for rich snippets, and optimizing for local SEO using tools like Google Business Profile. Sustaining high search engine rankings requires ongoing vigilance through regular SEO audits and performance monitoring via Google Analytics and Search Console.

9. Test and launch your website

Before taking a small business website live, comprehensive testing is essential to guarantee high performance and an optimal user experience. This pre-launch phase requires conducting thorough functional and load testing, verifying browser and mobile responsiveness, and executing meticulous checks for SEO accuracy, security protocols, and legal compliance. To secure a smooth transition to production, businesses must capture a pre-launch backup, verify analytics tracking systems, and execute a coordinated marketing launch plan. Ultimately, maintaining a successful online presence relies on diligent post-launch monitoring, routine platform and plugin updates, and continuous performance optimization driven by A/B testing and ongoing customer feedback loops.

A small business website should evolve with your business and the changing demands of customers. Applying these best practices will help you engage customers, build your brand, and drive growth.

What to do after your website goes live

Launching your website is a major milestone, but a successful online presence requires ongoing momentum. To ensure your site continues to drive business growth, rank well in search engines, and remain secure, prioritize these essential post-launch actions:

1. Promote your launch

Share the news on your social media platforms, send an announcement to your email newsletter subscribers, and update your email signatures to drive immediate traffic.

2. Monitor performance and address bugs

Using tools like Google analytics and Google Search Console, track user behavior and technical site health, keeping a sharp eye out for unexpected bugs, broken links, formatting issues, or slow loading speeds.

3. Commit to regular security maintenance

Protect your asset from cyber vulnerabilities by establishing a routine schedule for updating your platform software, themes, and third-party plugins, as well as ensuring that automated backup systems are working correctly.

4. Publish fresh content consistently

Keep your audience engaged and steadily improve your SEO rankings by routinely adding fresh content, such as educational blog posts, new case studies, updated product pages, or current customer testimonials.

5. Analyze data and optimize

Establish a continuous feedback loop by asking customers for their input on your new site. Combine this qualitative feedback with quantitative analytics data to run structured A/B tests on headline, layouts, and CTAs to increase conversion over time.

How Stripe Atlas can help

Stripe Atlas sets up your company’s legal foundations so you can fundraise, open a bank account, and accept payments within two business days from anywhere in the world.

Join 75K+ companies incorporated using Atlas, including startups backed by top investors like Y Combinator, a16z, and General Catalyst.

Applying to Atlas

Applying to form a company with Atlas takes less than 10 minutes. You’ll choose your company structure, instantly confirm whether your company name is available, and add up to four cofounders. You’ll also decide how to split equity, reserve a pool of equity for future investors and employees, appoint officers, and then e-sign all your documents. Any cofounders will receive emails inviting them to e-sign their documents, too.

Accepting payments and banking before your EIN arrives

After forming your company, Atlas files for your EIN. Founders with a US Social Security number, address, and cell phone number are eligible for IRS expedited processing, while others will receive standard processing, which can take a little longer. Additionally, Atlas enables pre-EIN payments and banking, so you can start accepting payments and making transactions before your EIN arrives.

Cashless founder stock purchase

Founders can purchase initial shares using their intellectual property (e.g., copyrights or patents) instead of cash, with proof of purchase stored in your Atlas Dashboard. Your IP must be valued at $100 or less to use this feature; if you own IP above that value, consult a lawyer before proceeding.

Automatic 83(b) tax election filing

Founders can file an 83(b) tax election to reduce personal income taxes. Atlas will file it for you—whether you are a US or non-US founder—with USPS Certified Mail and tracking. You’ll receive a signed 83(b) election and proof of filing directly in the Stripe Dashboard.

World-class company legal documents

Atlas provides all the legal documents you need to start running your company. Atlas C corp documents are built in collaboration with Cooley, one of the world’s leading venture capital law firms. These documents are designed to help you fundraise immediately and ensure your company is legally protected, covering aspects like ownership structure, equity distribution, and tax compliance.

A free year of Stripe Payments, plus $50K in partner credits and discounts

Atlas collaborates with top-tier partners to give founders exclusive discounts and credits. These include discounts on essential tools for engineering, tax, finance, compliance, and operations from industry leaders like AWS, Carta, and Perplexity. We also provide you with your required Delaware registered agent for free in your first year. Plus, as an Atlas user, you’ll access additional Stripe benefits, including up to a year of free payment processing for up to $100K in payments volume.

Learn more about how Atlas can help you set up your new business quickly and easily, and get started today.