For the past few years, building and running an online business has been the most feasible endeavour for entrepreneurs.
While the competition is getting a lot tougher, it is significantly easier to get your website up and running with the availability of site-building tools.
You no longer need a professional web developer to create functional, beautiful and profitable sites.
These tools may also give you a competitive edge especially if you utilize the right ones that can help you achieve your specific business goals.
For most online entrepreneurs, building a business website always has five phases: web hosting, installing a Content Management System (CMS), integrating security solutions, applying on-site SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and performance tracking.
If you want to build an epic-win website, then here are the best, most reliable tools you should consider using for your key site-building processes:
Web Hosting: Using Temok
Choosing a web host is one of the most important decisions you should make early on that can affect your online enterprise in the long run.
There are plenty of viable hosts to choose from in today's market. However, one of the top contenders for startups would be Temok.
The hosting plans available from Temok are probably the most economical options even for mid-size businesses or online stores with a sizeable amount of data.
It is also extremely easy to register a new domain right off the bat. Just type in your desired domain name from the homepage and you are well on your way.
Temok’s hosting service can provide you with maximum uptime, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited MySQL databases, and 24/7 support for as little as $2.99 a month. Much cheaper than other hosts with similar features.
For maximum data space (200GB/month), you only need to add $5 for their First Class USA package.
CMS: Using WordPress
A CMS is an environment that enables the creation of beautiful and preconfigured websites without the need for coding.
WordPress is probably the most famous and powerful Content Management Systems there is. It is free and easy to use and is backed by a large community as well as a vast learning library for those with no web development experience.
Most of the essential tasks needed to build a simple site can be done via the dashboard. This includes writing content, setting up security, adjusting appearance, installing plugins, creating menus, and interlinking your pages.
You can choose from hundreds of themes with prebuilt layouts for your pages and add bits of functionality using plugins.
WordPress also has significant support for third-party themes and plugins, making it an exceptionally flexible platform for building your site.
While it is perfect for creating blogs, it is not exclusively used for blogging. It may be easy to learn, but WordPress has a very high ceiling.
It is capable enough for building online stores, portfolio sites, jobs site, and so on.
By adding the right plugins or writing the right codes, you can create just about any site you can think of.
Integrating Site Security: Using Sucuri.net
There may be free security plugins available for WordPress, but those options are never really enough for a growing website.
Security is an important issue if you want to protect your hard work, keep your site accessible to your audience, and stabilize your visibility in search engines. Security issues may also affect your site’s loading speed, which will hurt user experience.
Sucuri.net is one of the most reliable, one-stop tools you can avail for securing your site. It thoroughly inspects and cleans your site for malware and applies additional security measures to prevent infections and DDoS attacks down the road.
Its principal products include a firewall and antivirus. It also offers a backup service to ensure you have the last line of defence for peace of mind.
Another reason Sucuri.net is on this list is because of its WordPress security features.
Being the most popular CMS, WordPress is a favourite target for hackers and attackers. With the constant stream of new plugins and themes, it is difficult to set and enforce a clear standard to prevent these vulnerabilities.
Sucuri.net effectively prevents these by hardening your access points and blocking bad traffic with its advanced detection.
Conducting SEO: Using WooRank
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is often one of the biggest hurdles for startups and entrepreneurs who are new to the landscape of digital marketing.
SEO has one purpose: to make your site visible to the online traffic coming from search engines. It spans several aspects of your website from your internal linking structure down to your target keywords.
The spectrum of SEO has become so broad that a lot of online businesses do not even know where to start. Hiring professional SEO agencies is also not the most practical option given their price.
For site owners who want to take on SEO themselves, WooRank can eliminate all the guesswork and point you in the right direction.
WooRank kick-starts SEO for new websites by performing an instant website review.
Just insert your site's URL in WooRank's homepage and you can easily access a detailed SEO report as well as analytics on other sensitive data such as your loading speed on mobile devices, usability, security, and so on.
It also provides you with a checklist of what you can do to improve your search engine rankings.
Measuring Performance: Using Google Analytics
In online businesses, it is just impossible to get everything right on the first try.
You can even say that your website can never be perfect, and there will always be ways to improve.
Google Analytics will be your partner in the long run for measuring and adjusting your site for achieving maximum revenue.
The first thing you should look at is the free analytics platform suited for small businesses.
You can review sensitive data such as your site's traffic, average dwell time (visit duration), conversion rate, and traffic types.
These metrics will help you gauge the performance of your marketing strategies and make better-informed decisions on how to improve.
If you want to take things to the next level, then you can avail Google Analytics Premium, which is built specifically for large organizations with big data.
It is secure, reliable, and comes with exclusive access to training, learning resources, and 24/7 support.
Google Analytics Premium also integrates fully with other products including AdWords and the Google Display Network.