People talk about websites as if putting one online required ten different services. In reality you need three things, and only two of them are paid every year.
The domain: your address
It's what people type to reach you: yourbusiness.com. You rent it by the year and it is the cheapest line of the whole project. Pick something short and easy to say out loud, with no hyphens or odd numbers: you'll be dictating it over the phone more often than you think.
One piece of advice that saves trouble: register the domain in your name, not in the name of whoever builds your site. It's your address, the same as the premises your business trades from.
Hosting: where it lives
Your site's files have to sit on a computer that stays on around the clock so anyone can see them. That's hosting, and it's also paid yearly. For a normal business site it is not the line that will decide your budget.
Content: the part that really costs
This is where nearly every project stalls, and it isn't about money. The copy explaining what you do, photos of your place or your product, your logo if you have one. The technical side takes days; gathering good material can take weeks if you don't get to it.
- 01What you do and who for, in your own words.
- 02Decent photos: of the place, the team or what you sell.
- 03Contact details and opening hours, if people visit you.
- 04Your logo in good quality, if you already have one.
What you don't need yet
A blog from day one, a dozen integrations, an automated chat or a presence on every social network. All of that can come once the site works and you know what you're missing. Starting there is the surest way of never publishing at all.