Create a Small Business Website in Minutes!

Creating a website for your small business can be frustrating and time consuming. You have to figure out how to build it, brand it and get it live. You have enough to do as a small business owner, don’t make your website more complicated than it needs to be.

Personal Review

I have been using Weebly for about five years. I built my first small business website for my granola business. It was a simple website in the beginning and then I added a store as my business grew. I have been very happy with not only the simplicity of building a site but the customer service too!

Currently, I run four websites on Weebly. Three for local non-profits and my Virtual Assistant website. Three out of four are simple websites with a few pages and a contact form. The last site has a full store and it is still very simple to update and add products.

The downside of Weebly can be the price if you want full functionality with a store and email marketing. Of course, you will have to pay anywhere you build a site and it is actually slightly cheaper than Squarespace.

Weebly is a simple to use, drag and drop website builder. They have beautiful, fully responsive, themes to choose from and a integrated eCommerce platform. You can create a simple to manage store, portfolio or blog in minutes.

Weebly also has added email marketing to their site. This allows you to do all your customer relations in one place. You won’t need an account with MailChimp or Mad Mimi to do an email newsletter. It is one less fee to pay and account to manage.

One of the other nice things about Weebly is that you can get started for free. Simply create an account and start building your website right away. If you like it, you can upgrade and get a free custom domain!

If you are a business owner on the go they have an app that will let you keep your website up to date from anywhere. You can also add a professional e-mail address and keep in contact with your clients and potential customers through their built in marketing integration.

How to Get Started

First you will need to create an account. Just click on the Sign Up button, enter your name, email and a password. Weebly will ask you a few questions, what kind of business you have, what the name of the business is and then will ask you to pick a theme.

Themes

You can change the theme whenever you want so just pick something that you like the look of and get started. If you decided to change your theme later it is as simple as clicking a button.

There are lots of themes to pick through. You can filter them by Business, Portfolio, Store and more. So take you time and look around at a few of them. If you click on them it will take you to a sample website so you can see how different pages are structured.

Once you click the start editing button you will be taken to the backend of your new site. Weebly will give you a chance to choose a subdomain, register a new domain or connect an existing domain that you already own. I put the name of my pretend business in the subdomain box, Awesome Small Business, and clicked continue.

Behind the Scenes

The backend is where you can edit your site. Some things in a theme can not be changed but you do have control over tons of features, apps and functions.

I go through a bunch of edits in this video. It gives you an overview of where to find things, how to move them around and how to add pages.

 

How to Add Pages

Pages are very simple to add. You choose Pages on the top menu bar and then click the + button on the side bar. It will give you the option of a Standard Page, Blog Page, External or Non-Clickable Menu.

A Standard Page is just that, standard. A Blog Page will let you add blog posts in order and post them as a blog roll. An External Page will let you create a page in your menu that will open a different website when clicked. This is helpful if you have two businesses that you want to connect. A Non-Clickable Menu is for adding a non-clickable page in the menu to hold subpages. So the name you put to the Non-Clickable Menu will show in your menu but when clicked it will show you the subpages you put under it instead.

Plans and Pricing

Weebly offers a variety of plans, from Starter at $8 a month to Performance at $49 and a few in between. If you click on to the Pricing page you can compare all the features to find the plan that is right for you.

When you are happy with your site and ready to publish click on the Upgrade button in the top right of the page.

This will bring you to a page where you can choose your plan and enter your payment information. After  you have entered you information you will be able to choose your Free Domain and publish your website.

And that’s it! You will have your very own, one of a kind, small business website!

I have put this post in a pdf guide with a checklist to help you create your small business website. Just enter your name and email below!

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