Tips for building your business website

1. Company name as your domain name

You can use your company name as the domain name. Check with official Dutch domain registrar SIDN if the domain name you want to register is still available. Make sure to register your domain name with SIDN before you register with the KVK Business Register. When you register with the Business Register, your company name becomes public. So someone else can register 'your' domain name. This is something that happens regularly.   

2. Who is your target audience?

Before you build your website, make sure you know who your prospective customers are. Knowing your target audience will enable you to build a better website. You can use persona's to set up a target audience profile. Persona's are fictitious customers with specific characteristics, such as:

• age
• gender
• income
• character traits
• hobbies
• online activities
• what this persona expects from your products and services

3. Ensure the copyright is yours

Once you have registered a domain name and identified your target audience, you can start building your website. There are several parts to build:

• lay-out or format
• source code
• content including blogs, images, and videos

You can use software that comes with existing website templates, build a website yourself, or hire a third party to build it for you. If you do, make sure the copyright is transferred to you upon completion of the order. If you do not arrange this beforehand, the maker of the website will automatically hold the copyright. You would not be allowed to make changes to the website without the maker's consent. Once you have the copyright, you can make changes without permission or extra costs.

Do you play music as background on your website? Then you will have to deal with music rights. Ask Buma/Stemra what the costs are.

4. Take care of SEO 

To get as many visitors on your website as possible, you need to rank well in search engines. This is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. These tips will help you optimise your website:

• update your website regularly. Search engines rank websites that update often higher than 'static' websites;
• place as many useful links to other websites as possible. And get other websites to link to you, preferably websites with more authority than yours. This is called linkbuilding;
• write original texts and put your main keywords in your titles and subtitles;
• use the same keywords a couple of times in the running text and in the url;
• keep the url clear and short;
• add a meta description to each article. This short description of what is in the article is often used by search engines to display in the search results. 

5. Budget for SEA

Search Engine Advertising, or SEA, is a good way to attract visitors to your website. Your ad will appear above unpaid search results. In the ads, use keywords relevant to your target audience. SEA is paid per click: CPC (cost per click) or PPC (pay per click).

6. Customer reviews

Customer reviews are increasingly important. Prospective customers value these independent opinions about your products and services. You can add a customer review functionality to your website, so that customers can place a review themselves.

You can place reviews customers have sent you on your website. These are often called testimonials or experiences. You must ask the customer for permission first. Make sure you follow the EU privacy regulations. 

Do you gather and use your customers' or prospective customers' personal data? Check if you comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

When it comes to reviews, you must follow online sales regulations. For example, you must inform your customer about how you handle reviews and do your best to prevent fake reviews. You are not allowed to take down negative reviews unless they are clearly fake.

7. Safety first

The last thing you want is your website getting hacked, and your customers' personal data in the hands of a hacker. Yet this happens more and more often. What can you do to protect your website and their privacy?

• One thing you can do, is use TLS encryption. Transport Layer Security is the latest development, replacing SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). With TLS, you encrypt passwords and other privacy-sensitive data (https). Note: the abbreviations TLS and SSL are often interchanged. You apply for a TLS certificate at a Certification Authority, or CA. Once you have TLS, a small padlock will appear in your browser address bar. This padlock reassures your customers, and it improves your Google ranking. That means more visitors, and more turnover.
• To further ensure the safety of your website, always update to the latest version of the software you are using as soon as possible, to prevent security breaches.
• Read how to prevent a data breach.

8. Make your website accessible

Internet users with disabilities may have difficulty understanding your website. For instance, people with visual or hearing impairments, or a low literacy level. Improve your website accessibility by, for instance, using contrasting colours, video subtitles, and larger navigation buttons.

9. Build a responsive website 

A responsive website is a website that is suitable for both desktop and mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones. With a responsive website, your customer can read and view your website using any device. 

Reading the small print of a normal website via a mobile device is distracting, as the image size is not matched. This means visitors leave your website more quickly. A responsive website adapts to the small screen in terms of layout. For example, buttons on the site are extra large, making it easier to touch them with your finger. Text is also extra large, and text and images fit within the width of your screen. There is no need to scroll left and right, or zoom in and out.