How to build a website for your small business, step by step

Building a website for a small business comes down to five things, done in this order: a clear job for the site, a domain name, a way to build it, hosting and the words and photos that go on it. Plenty of half-finished sites stalled because someone picked a template before deciding what the site was for.

Below is how to build a website step by step, with the Australian registrations included. You can do every step yourself. Where paying someone makes more sense, we'll say so.

Step 1: Decide what the site has to do

Finish this sentence before you touch anything else: "When someone lands on my site, I want them to..." Ring you. Book a time. Buy something. Send a quote request. Check your hours and turn up.

That sentence shapes almost everything after it. A plumber's site exists to make the phone ring, so the number needs to be big and tappable, with a page for each service. A shop needs a checkout, shipping rules and a returns page. A clinic needs bookings that talk to its practice software. Build all three the same way and you get a site that looks nice and does nothing.

Step 2: Sort out the ABN and business name

Two registrations usually come first, because your domain depends on them.

• An ABN. It's free to register for an ABN through the Australian Business Register. There's no need to pay a third-party site to lodge it for you.
• A business name, unless you trade under your own. ASIC says you must register a business name if you're not trading under your own first name and surname. When we checked business.gov.au on 7 October 2026, it was $47 for one year or $108 for three. You need the ABN first.

Neither is needed to publish a website. A .com.au domain does need an Australian presence, though. For most small businesses the ABN is how they show it.

Step 3: Register the domain

Your domain is your address online, like yourbusiness.com.au. For a business selling to Australians, .com.au is still the usual choice. To get one you need that Australian presence. The name also has to connect to your business, such as an exact match or an acronym of your registered name. Our guide to getting a .com.au domain and business email sets them all out.

Two habits save a lot of pain later. Register the domain in your own name or your business's name, never a designer's or a mate's. Then switch on auto-renew. A lapsed domain takes your website and your email offline with it.

Step 4: Choose how you'll build it

A small business really has three routes.

A hosted website builder

Wix, Squarespace and the like. Hosting comes in the plan, the templates look good and you could launch in a weekend if your words are ready. The trade-off is that your site lives on their platform. Wix says outright that its sites can't be exported to another host.

WordPress on hosting you pick

WordPress is free software that runs on a hosting plan. Add a drag-and-drop editor and it's close to a builder for ease of use. Unlike a builder, you can move it to another host whenever you like. Somebody has to keep it updated, which is the part DIY owners forget.

Paying someone to build it

You bring the business knowledge. They handle the design, the build and the technical set-up. It costs more up front and saves you the most time. Our guide to what a website costs in Australia has real published prices.

Torn between doing it yourself and paying? Read the builder or designer comparison. Already set on DIY? Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress compares the three big platforms on price and lock-in.

Step 5: Set up hosting

On a builder, skip this one. Hosting is part of the plan. For WordPress you'll need a hosting account to install it on. Check three things before you pay: how often backups run and who restores them, whether the server is in Australia and what the plan costs at renewal rather than in the first year. If the jargon is new, our plain-English guide to what web hosting is covers it.

Step 6: Plan five pages, not fifteen

Most small businesses start well with five:

• Home. What you do, where you do it and how to reach you, visible without much scrolling on a phone.
• Services. Offer a few distinct services? Give each one its own page eventually. Someone searching for exactly that service is far more likely to land on a page about it.
• About. Who's behind the business, how long you've been at it and a photo of an actual human.
• Contact. Phone, email, a form, your service area and your hours.
• One page that fits your trade. A gallery for a builder. A price list for a salon. An FAQ for the questions you answer ten times a week.

Five pages that answer real questions beat fifteen thin ones.

Step 7: Write the words and take the photos

This step always takes longest. Write the way you'd explain the business to someone at the counter. Say what you do, where you work and roughly what things cost, if you're comfortable sharing that. Keep paragraphs short. Skip "we pride ourselves on quality". Every competitor says it.

Use your own photos wherever you can: your work, your premises, your vehicles, your face. Stock shots of smiling strangers in hard hats are easy to spot. They make a real business look like a template. A recent phone camera in decent light does the job.

Step 8: Get the contact form and privacy right

Test every form from start to finish. Fill it in, send it, then check the message arrives and isn't sitting in junk. A form that quietly fails is worse than having none, because people assume you ignored them.

If a form collects names and phone numbers, publish a short privacy policy saying what you do with them. The Privacy Act doesn't cover most businesses turning over $3 million a year or less. The OAIC lists the exceptions, though. Health service providers are one of them. Even where it isn't required, a plain policy is good manners.

Step 9: Check everything before it goes live

• Open every page on a phone, not only the laptop you built it on.
• Look for the padlock in the address bar. That's the SSL certificate. Without it, browsers warn people off.
• Give each page its own title and description. They're usually what Google shows in search results.
• Tap every link and button. Phone numbers should start a call when tapped.
• Test the speed. A heavy page on mobile data loses people before it's finished loading.

Our free website check covers several of these in one go: speed on a phone and a computer, the certificate and what Google reads from each page. It works on any platform, builders included.

Step 10: Let Google know the site exists

A new site won't show up in Google straight away. Set up Google Search Console, which is free. Prove you own the domain, then submit your sitemap. Search Console won't make you rank. What it does is make sure Google knows your pages are there, then tell you which searches you're appearing for and what's broken.

Customers come to you or you serve a set area? Set up a Google Business Profile as well. It's what appears on Google Maps.

After launch, keep it ticking over

A website isn't done on launch day. WordPress and its plugins need regular updates, because out-of-date plugins are a common way in for attackers. Builders handle that for you. Either way, keep prices, hours and photos current. Once a quarter, read the site as a customer would. Something will be wrong.

Or have it built for you

If those ten steps sound like more weekends than you've got, we can do the lot. The Starter package is $1,490 inc GST for 5 pages. You see a homepage demo within 7 days of paying. Our website packages page lists what each one includes, priced by the page.

Prefer to do it yourself without looking after the technical side? Build it yourself gives you a WordPress drag-and-drop editor on hosting we look after. Set-up is $199, then $25 a month inc GST.

Building a website: quick answers