Create your own business website as a UK contractor

Introduction -contractor website design or web design for small business (UK) 

How should you go about small business website design when you have your own UK contractor company or small business? In addition, should you have a business website as a UK contracting professional? You can search online for `free website design to showcase your services’ and see what results come up. Indeed, this could be a consideration when you set up your own company or you have been running your company for a while. If you are looking to set up a site, you should investigate website design for small business (UK). It could be a good move to set up your IT contractor website as it may help you find some new potential clients in the future. Therefore, let us consider web design for small businesses.

Many start-ups and small businesses will begin trading without a website in place. This will include limited company contractors and freelancers. However, as a limited company contractor, web design for small business and websites for contractors is something to investigate once your business is in place. As a UK contractor, a website can benefit you and your company in several ways. Indeed, getting your business online could help generate new income in the future. The contractor website will also give your business a professional look online.

Therefore, let us consider how to build my own business website and how you set up websites for small businesses (UK). There is a lot to think about here. Indeed, plenty of options are available when contemplating small business website design (UK). We will learn how to create your website and what to consider for small business or contractor website hosting costs in the UK. The two key areas when you create your contractor website are the actual web design and hosting (UK).

Initial thoughts on small business web design (UK) for contactors

Create your own website (UK) -the benefits

Nowadays, when you create your small business website (UK), there is a low cost of entry. There are lots of great contractor websites on the internet and you could view some of these contractor website examples online to give you some ideas. Indeed, many websites help you build and design your own website (UK) with a free plan or a free trial and this is how many new contractor sites start out.

Initially, you could search for the best website builder for small business (UK), best website builder for contractors as well as best contractor website design. First, you will be looking for affordable website design for small businesses and contractor website ideas. Therefore, this is an excellent place to start for web design for small businesses in the UK if you can do this for free or at a low cost. As a contractor, you could look into affordable contractor websites online and get some ideas. Due to a low initial cost, there is also no excuse not to consider setting a website up for your UK contracting business.

Once the small business web design is completed and the website for your business is in place, you could upgrade to a paid plan in the future. This will more than likely help you improve the website design (small business) overall. An example of this is the site that you are reading now. Traffic to this website multiplied ten times after the site was professionally redesigned. Therefore, you could start off with a free plan first of all and perhaps consider making it into one of the best contractor websites at a later date.

Best contractor website design and creation -more benefits

When you have your personalised website as part of your contractor web design, it is a great way to promote your business. As we look at websites for small businesses and websites for contractors, there can be many benefits for those who have an online presence:

• You can showcase your professional services. As part of this, you can also give examples of your past work and completed projects. Some of the best websites for contractors on the web will do this to help attract new business.

• Direct enquiries for your services may be received as a result of being visible on the world wide web. Basically, to increase the chance of this happening, you must ensure that your website is visible. Your new website should be easy to find. Therefore, you could promote your site on social media. Further down the line, you could also look into Search Engine Optimisation (SEO -see later in this article). It is also essential to ensure you write your pages and posts well with plenty of keywords as this is what some of the best sites for contractors have already done with their pages.

• If you show your CV on your IT contractor website, recruiters may find you. They often search the web regularly for potential new candidates.

• When you have your website for your business, you could use it as part of your defence should HMRC come up with their disguised employment argument. It is also a pointer toward being an actual business in terms of IR35.

When you create your own business website in the UK, this is a task that you can do yourself. However, some of the work required may not fall within your remit. If this is so, there is help out there to make sure that you succeed. 

Small business websites (UK) -initial costs

In terms of your UK contractor business website costs (UK), first you must purchase a business domain for your new website. The cost of this is around £30 per year. Basically, the name of your contractor website will probably be your company name, so you will want to protect this. As a result, you will need to ensure that no one else can use the same name. Therefore, for this reason, it would be advisable to purchase the .com and .co.uk and other variants.

Besides the web design for small business and any costs here, you may also need to pay for annual hosting costs for your new contracting website. Initially, this could cost you no more than £50 per year. However, if your traffic picks up in the future, you may need to pay more.

You may also want to consider a custom domain which is a branded domain name and identifies a website. A custom domain also enables you to create email accounts using your own domain with this at the end of the email. For more information, please see this video online.

Other initial considerations around your contractor website design

Email address and paid plans 

As a limited company contractor, you might decide to set up an email address with the same website name. This will give a good look for you as a professional in your industry and your company. You will also have the option to do email marketing to help promote your business.

Once your website is in place, you should be able to access this immediately. If you plan to include a lot of content on your website, you may decide to use a Content Management System (CMS). The CMS will make the site quicker to load, and there are other benefits here too.

Small business website design -platform/theme

As part of when we look into websites for small businesses, WordPress is one of the leading website software packages out there by far. However, there are many new entrants to the market now. Many owners of their own contractor limited company and freelancers alike choose WordPress for their business contractor websites. This is because it is popular when it comes to web design for small businesses. Indeed, this has thousands of potential templates compared to many of its rivals. Therefore, you could use WordPress hosting or choose another hosting provider.

This website was initially developed using the Divi theme. However, when it was professionally redeveloped, the design team used Avada. Notably, this is a much more lightweight theme with many great possibilities for future improvements.

Other factors

Many hosting and domain providers also offer WordPress as part of their service. Therefore, it is pretty simple to commence the website-building process as part of your small business web design once you have a domain and hosting.

As part of building your website, you will need to ensure that it is mobile-friendly. This is a key factor today as lots of traffic comes from mobile devices.

Once your site is up and running, you could also employ some SEO tools. Improving your site in terms of SEO will help you rank higher on the search engines. We are now using SEM Rush to help with this, as they are one of the leaders in this space. They have some terrific SEO tools that help make your site more visible on the internet. 

Initial steps -contractor website design

There are three initial steps in relation to website design for small business, when you set up your contractor website.

Best web hosting for small business (UK)

A web hosting service is a type of internet hosting service which hosts websites for their clients. When you look at website hosting costs (UK), picking a top service provider for your contractor web hosting is a good idea. This is key and will stand you in good stead in the future. It is notable that many comparison charts on the internet, including on many UK sites that show website hosting costs in the UK, tend to rank some providers who do not necessarily provide the best service.

There are many types of plans available and many offer assisted business website design and hosting (UK). What you should do, is investigate and find out the best website design and hosting for small business. As part of this, you can find the best hosting offered at the present time from reputable suppliers. Siteground offer a good web hosting plan if you are starting your new website. Shared hosting plans are a popular choice for your type of hosting when you first create a website. Other advanced plans exist if your site becomes more popular, such as a dedicated server or VPS hosting. When you choose your small business website hosting (UK) service, you will need to compare pricing plans that are currently available.

As part of running your website, you will also have access to the web hosting control panel. This is a graphical user or, in some cases, a web-based interface. It is accessible online, and this provides tools for managing your website.

Choose your type of hosting

Depending on how busy your website is, you will need to consider your hosting type. The choices for web hosting services that are available are:

• Shared hosting.

• Cloud hosting.

• VPS hosting.

• Managed WordPress hosting.

• Colocation hosting.

Most UK contractors and small businesses will start their websites on a shared hosting plan.

Many web hosting providers, including Siteground, also offer live chat facilities. This is useful if any technical queries arise as you run your website.

Platform

When we consider websites for small businesses, you will pick a platform to build your UK contractor website on. WordPress is very in-depth and has many choices for themes and plugins compared to its rivals. If you are to run your website yourself, WordPress takes some getting used to due to all the available options.

There are also now lots of free contractor website templates out there and you a contractor website builder is an ideal place to start. Many of the free website builders make it easier to design your site without hiring an actual web designer.

Caching

Choose an excellent caching plugin/option. What’s more, Siteground’s caching plugin (SG Optimiser) is good. Indeed, caching options should also be available via your web host. 

Further steps -contractor website design

Main considerations

Some further considerations as a UK contracting professional are:

• If you are not using a developer, use quality plugins that the developers update regularly.

• Consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for your website.

• Ensure that you have a backup service (Siteground is free).

• Use the latest PHP version and get an excellent lightweight theme. We also use Yoast for help with writing and have also used Grammarly in the past for checking articles.

• Test your site on GTMetrix.com to check for loading issues. This can help a great deal as well. There is also lots of excellent advice from Onlinemediamasters.com if you design your new site yourself.

Website design for small business -employ a developer who is good at web design for contractors

Initial steps 

Initially, when you choose to set up a business website, you could employ a developer from the start which offers contractor website services. Indeed, this especially important if you need small business website advice and help from the outset. The developer could work solo or may be part of a website design company for small business (in UK). Alternatively, you could bring a developer in further down the line to provide professional website design and hosting. You may decide to do this if you would like your site to look more professional to the outside world.

A professional developer will offer web design services for small business and help your site stand out. When you look for a developer for your business you could search for contractor website services and website designs for contractors and see what is available. As part of your site’s journey, the contractor website development and design will be key. In addition, the best contractor web design will also help your site climb the search engine pages.

Further steps

You could search for a developer and small business web designer who could work directly for you. There are many out there on Upwork and Fiverr who provide contractor website design services. Alternatively, you could look for a contractor website design agency for your contractor web design services. In addition, you could ask the contractor website design company to look at some of their best contractor websites examples and any that they have created for previous clients. An important area to consider as part of a contractor’s website design is the colour palettes and what to show on your main contractor landing page. You can also consider what design work will need to be completed and advise the developer at your contractor web design company accordingly. However, please ensure you get a quote from the contractor web design agency upfront for the work involved.

A professional look website that is of high quality will add to the user experience. You can also think about adding some call to actions buttons. These will help steer your audience to the parts of your website that you would like them to read.

Further considerations for contractor website design

Some further considerations are:

• If you will be selling any goods to your visitors, you could also look to create an online store. Many online applications will help you set this up if you will sell any products in the future.

• Online security -your website needs adequate protection, and your hosting provider will guide you here. Regular backups are essential; HTTPS (not HTTP) is the norm today. There are also attackers out there, and one thing to do is ensure you do not have inactive plugins on your site. SSL digital certificates enable a website to move from HTTP to HTTPS, which is more secure. Many platforms out there now include a free SSL certificate.

• Look into marketing. You can market your new website for your business on social media. It will include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and more. The online search engines will index your site. Once this is up and running, you can submit your site map to Google, Bing, and others.

Other tips

Please read our article which covers tax tips for UK contractors. This includes many handy tips and advice that you should know when you have your own business.

As mentioned, WordPress is one of the leading website providers out there. There are so many choices for themes and modules that it is hard to know where to start.

Final thoughts

There are now many contractor websites out there as many contracting professionals decide it is a good idea to set one up. You could search the web for contractor website designs and the best web hosting and design to give you some ideas to get your business online. As a small business or contractor, there is quite a lot to consider when you look into website design for contractors and web design for a small business in the UK. Many will start off by investigating websites for small businesses themselves and see how they go. If the website starts to improve you may then consider bringing in a developer who specialises in contractor website services.

Finally, many small businesses or contractors may not choose to employ a developer from the outset. However, sometimes this may be the better option or alternatively, you can bring one on board later perhaps.

Link to Contractor Advice UK group on

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