If you're looking up how to create a website for your business, you've probably already watched a few tutorials explaining which button to click in Wix or WordPress. That's the easiest part, and the one that changes the outcome the least. What decides whether the site brings you customers happens before you open any tool and after you hit "publish", and that's exactly what the tutorials skip.
I've reviewed plenty of freshly launched sites that look great and, six months later, get zero visits from Google. When I dig into why, design rarely makes the list. What shows up instead is a site built without knowing what people search for, a domain registered under the agency's name, a file telling Google not to index anything (yes, it happens more than you'd think) or pages that say "we are leaders in comprehensive solutions" without explaining what they sell.
So this guide follows the order I'd use myself, with the usual steps plus the ones that tend to get left out.
What do you need to decide before creating a website?
Three things, and it's worth writing them down before anyone talks about colors or templates.
The first is what action you want visitors to take. Request a quote, buy, message you on WhatsApp, book an appointment, download a catalog. A site without a clear main action ends up as a digital brochure, and brochures don't sell on their own.
The second is who is going to look for you and with what words. Your customer doesn't type "comprehensive veterinary solutions" into Google. They type "24 hour vet near me" or "how much does it cost to spay a cat". If your site doesn't use those words, Google has no way to connect it to those searches.
The third is who's going to maintain it. A website needs updates, new content and someone checking that the contact form still works. If the answer is "nobody", pick a simple platform, even if it's less flexible.
To keep this concrete, I'll use a made-up example throughout the guide: a veterinary clinic in Arequipa, Peru, that currently gets customers through word of mouth and wants to be found on Google.
Which pages should your site have?
This is the step with the most impact and the one most often skipped. Before designing anything, list the searches you want to answer and assign each one to a page. Every page answers one intent, and every intent gets a single page (if two pages compete for the same search, Google picks one and the other ends up in limbo).
You don't need a budget to find those searches. Type your service into Google and look at the autocomplete, check the "People also ask" box and notice what kind of pages show up at the top. If you want to go deeper, here's a guide on how to work with keywords.
For the clinic in our example, the map would look roughly like this:
| Page | Search it answers | Main action |
|---|---|---|
| Home | vet in Arequipa | Call or message on WhatsApp |
| 24-hour emergencies | 24 hour vet Arequipa | Call |
| Spaying and neutering | cat spay cost Arequipa | Book |
| Vaccines | puppy vaccination schedule | Book |
| About us | (brand searches) | Build trust |
| Contact | (brand and address searches) | Visit the clinic |
Notice that every important service has its own page. A common mistake is cramming every service into a single "Services" page, which ends up ranking for none of them. The blog can come later, once the service pages are solid (if you're curious about that step, here's what a blog is for).
How do you choose a domain?
The domain is your address on the internet, the "yourclinic.com". A few simple rules:
- Short, easy to say over the phone and without hyphens.
- Your brand, not a string of keywords ("cheap-vet-arequipa.com" looks untrustworthy and gives you no edge on Google).
- If you only sell in one country, a local extension (like .pe in Peru or .cl in Chile) tells users, and search engines, that you're local. If you plan to sell in several countries, a .com gives you more room.
The rule that saves the most headaches is registering the domain under your company's name with an email address you control. I've helped businesses that switched providers and found out their domain lived in the personal account of the freelancer who built the site five years earlier. Getting it back can take weeks. Turn on auto-renewal too, because an expired domain can take your site offline overnight.
Wix, WordPress or Shopify? How to choose a platform
The best platform depends on what you need and who will run it. A practical summary:
| Platform | A good fit if | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Wix or Squarespace | You want something quick, with few pages, without relying on a developer | Less flexibility to grow or make technical changes |
| WordPress | You want full control and plan to publish content regularly | It needs maintenance (updates, security, hosting) |
| Shopify | You're going to sell products online | Monthly cost and fees depending on the plan |
| AI site builders or custom development | You need something specific or highly customized | Check how they serve content to search engines |
That last point deserves an explanation. Some modern sites load their text with JavaScript after the browser opens the page. For a person it makes no difference, but several of the crawlers used by AI tools don't execute JavaScript, so they can land on your site and find an almost empty page. To check, open your page, right-click, choose "View page source" and search for a sentence from your text. If it isn't there, ask whoever built the site how the content is being rendered.
If you're going to sell online, it helps to read what ecommerce is and how it works before choosing a platform.
How should you write the content for each page?
This is where most of your rankings are won or lost. A few guidelines I apply to every page:
The title and main heading use the words people search for. "Cat spaying in Arequipa" works better than "We care for your best friend".
The first paragraph answers what you do, for whom and where. If someone reads only that, they already know whether they're in the right place.
Include what people want to know before contacting you: prices or price ranges, opening hours, how long a procedure takes, what to bring. Every question you answer on the page removes one reason not to get in touch.
Use real photos of your premises and team. Stock photos say nothing to anyone, and they don't help Google understand who you are either.
And keep your details identical everywhere. The name, address and phone number on your site should match your Google Business Profile, your social media and any directory you appear in. Both Google and AI assistants build a profile of your business by cross-checking those sources, and when the details don't match, they understand you less well. If you have a physical location, this local SEO checklist will help you review that.
If your site has a page built purely to convert (for a paid campaign, say), here's how to build a landing page that ranks and converts.
What should you check before going live?
This is the list I go through with any new site before launch:
- HTTPS enabled. The padlock in the browser. Almost every platform includes it for free these days.
- It looks good on mobile. Most of your visits will come from phones. Check it on your own phone, not just in the editor preview.
- Speed. Compress images before uploading them. A slow site loses visits and sales, and in this article I calculate how much traffic you lose to load time.
- A title and meta description on every page. They're the text that shows up on Google. If you leave them blank, the platform fills in something generic.
- Google can index it. WordPress has a box called "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" that often gets ticked while the site is under construction. Make sure it's unticked at launch. Same goes for the robots.txt file.
- Sitemap (sitemap.xml). Most platforms generate one automatically. Write down its address, you'll need it in the next step.
- Structured data. A block of code that tells search engines, in their own language, that you're a local business with a given address, opening hours and phone number. I explain why it matters in structured data and AI visibility.
- Forms and buttons tested. Send a test form and confirm the email arrives. Tap the WhatsApp button from your phone.
How do you get Google and AI to find your site?
A published site doesn't exist for Google until it's crawled and indexed, and you can speed that up. On launch day, do this:
- Create a Google Search Console account, verify the domain and submit the sitemap. That's where you'll see which searches you show up for and whether there are indexing errors.
- Install Google Analytics 4 (or the analytics tool you prefer) and set the main action you defined at the start as a conversion.
- Connect the site to your Google Business Profile.
Then comes the slow part, which is getting other sites to talk about you. Industry associations, suppliers, directories in your sector, local media, customers who mention you. Those mentions give Google context, and they're one of the sources assistants like ChatGPT use to decide whether to recommend you when someone asks about a service like yours.
On timing, it pays to be realistic. In my experience, a new site in a market with moderate competition takes three to six months to start getting visits from searches that don't include your brand name. If you see no movement in Search Console in that window, first check whether your pages are indexed and whether the content answers what people search for, before thinking about a redesign.
How much does it cost to create a website?
It depends a lot on scope, but costs usually split into five parts: the domain (paid yearly), the platform or hosting (monthly or yearly), design and development (a one-off payment, unless you do it yourself), content (copy and photos) and maintenance.
The two most underestimated are content and maintenance. A site with top-notch design and generic copy performs worse than a simple site with copy that answers what people search for. If your budget is tight, my advice is to use a template and put the savings into content. And if a few years from now you need to rebuild it, keep this checklist for redesigning your site without losing rankings.
What you can do tomorrow
Before opening Wix, WordPress or any editor, open a spreadsheet with three columns: page, search it answers and action you want the visitor to take. Fill in one row for every page you picture on your site. If there are pages you can't match to a search, you probably don't need them. If there are important searches without a page, that's your next page.
That spreadsheet takes an afternoon, costs nothing and is the document that will help most whoever designs your site, whether that's you or an agency.