Most businesses experience excitement when they launch a new website, and at first glance, the plethora of factors that go into planning one might seem overwhelming. The good news is that building a website doesn’t need to be a difficult process in today’s world. Building the foundation for your website’s future success requires careful planning. A website business plan is necessary to serve as a roadmap to a profitable website business. For this reason, we added a template for a website business plan to make writing your plan easier.
Are you ready? Let’s move ahead…
What is a Website Business?
Without an online presence, running a business, even a brick-and-mortar one, is no longer practical. Internet users look for everything from products to locations and business hours. If you have things to sell, your website may extend your business easily and affordably by opening up new markets. Even a basic, well-designed website can give you an edge in your industry.
Software for creating websites has been developed to be user-friendly for everyone. You can create an appealing and useful website without knowing how to code. Regardless of the program, you use, you only need to adhere to a few fundamental guidelines and regulations to give your website a polished appearance, make it simple to locate, and present your business in the best possible way.
How To Start a Website Business
Website business might seem easy to start, but if some steps are not followed, it might later get affected. We’ve listed out some steps you can follow to make the journey easier and the business more successful. Here are steps on how to start a website business:
#1. Research Your target market
It’s crucial to consider your target market and the services they’ll require when you build your web design company. It is also important to learn as much as you can about the opposition. You’ll be able to do this with the aid of some market research. The following are to be considered when researching your target market:
- Clients: consider the kind of work that your company will be able to accept. You can use this to find out which companies and organizations are most likely to use your services.
- Local companies: you can choose to focus on local companies that do not yet have websites. You might inform nearby businesses about your services using a mail-shot. You can decide to concentrate your efforts on a specific industry, like the retail industry.
- You could choose to narrowly target your mailer (or telesales campaign).
- Other prospective customers could be companies that want to redesign or enhance their websites or companies that frequently require website maintenance services from a professional like you. Consider the additional services you could provide for your customers, such as website hosting, domain name administration, search engine optimization and placement, graphic design, and so forth.
After choosing potential clients, you must ascertain how well they are currently being served.
#2. Decide Which Services To Offer
Depending on your abilities, education, and experience, you may decide to provide a wide variety of services (and those of any business partners, or staff that you employ). The services you can provide will also depend on the resources you have at your disposal, particularly specialized software.
Most or all of the following services might be provided by a typical web development company:
- web design, including site layout, page templates, graphics, logos, and icons
- additional graphic design as needed
- e-commerce features
- updating and maintaining a website
- web programming, such as developing dynamic websites
- special business social media services
- programming and designing databases
- for clients to be able to manage and update their own website in the future, basic instruction or training is required
- development of content management systems, especially WordPress
- creation of additional multimedia elements, such as sound, animation, and video
- integration with already-existing platforms and systems, including platforms for blogs and forums, PayPal, Amazon, Google Maps or Multimap, and social media
You can also be asked to develop business intranet and extranet sites in addition to internet websites. Customers might also request that you create mobile-friendly versions of their websites for use on tablets, smartphones, and other similar small-screen devices. It’s up to you to choose the one you want to go for.
#3. Promote Your Business
It’s critical to properly market your web design company to potential clients, letting them know who you are, where you are, and what you can do for them. You can use the following strategies to promote your business:
#1. Online advertising
People will look for services like web design online, so it goes without saying that you should have a top-notch website that fully demonstrates your technical prowess and creative flair. Make sure it functions properly across a wide range of devices, screen sizes, and operating systems, as well as on as many different web browsers as you can. Make sure it appears as high up as possible in the search engine results. You might think about purchasing search engine advertising.
Make sure to fully utilise social media, blogs, and forums.
#2. Via word-of-mouth
Referrals from friends and family are incredibly beneficial for your business. Many potential customers will be curious about your track record. You could, with your client’s consent, place a “Designed by…” logo in a subdued but noticeable place on their websites. A live link to your own website could be included in the logo. As part of your online resume of previous work, you may also link to their websites from your own.
#3. Other methods of promotion
- Placing an ad in a local newspaper
- Joining networking organizations and local business groups.
- In your commercials, try to highlight as many positive aspects of your company as you can, especially those that set it apart from the competition.
- Keep in mind that if you have your business car sign written, keep it clean and appealing, it may be a very effective form of promotion.
What Is a Website Business Plan?
A business plan gives a current overview of your website company and outlines your growth strategy for the next five years. It outlines your company’s objectives and your plan for achieving them. Market research is also included to help you with your plans.
How To Write a Website Business Plan
The website business plan seems confusing, right? You don’t need to worry, we’ve listed below some steps to guide you through how to write one for your website business. Here are the steps:
#1. Executive Summary
Although it introduces your business plan, the executive summary is typically the last piece you write because it summarises each important part of your plan.
Your executive summary should effectively grab the reader’s attention. Tell them about the kind of website design company you run and its current state.
Give a brief description of each of the following sections of your plan after that. We’ve created a website business plan template to make it easier for you to write. Download it here.
#2. Company Analysis
You need to describe the type of website business you are operating in your company analysis.
The following are the types of website design businesses you can operate:
- WordPress website design: This sort of firm creates websites using WordPress.
- Custom website design: it involves creating both the front end and the back end of a website utilizing coding, programming, databases, forms, etc. Without the use of a content management system,
- Website design for other platforms: This sector employs a range of other platforms to create particular types of sites.
Your website business plan’s company analysis section must include background information on the company.
#3. Industry Analysis
You must give a general summary of the website industry in your industry analysis. Although it may appear unneeded, this offers a wide range of purposes.
First, you gain knowledge by investigating the website design sector. It aids in your understanding of the industry you work in. Secondly, market research can help you refine your plan, especially if you find market trends.
The third justification for conducting market research is to demonstrate to readers that you are an authority in your field. You accomplish this by performing the study and presenting the results in your plan.
Your website design business plan’s customer analysis section must include information on the clients you already serve and/or anticipate serving.
#4. Customer Analysis
As you may expect, the customer segment(s) you select will significantly affect the kind of website design firm you run.
Try to segment your target market based on their psychographic and demographic characteristics. Include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the customers you hope to serve in your demographics section. Such demographic data is simple to find on government websites because the majority of website design businesses cater primarily to local residents.
The desires and requirements of your target market are described by psychographic profiles. The better you are at attracting and keeping clients, the more you can comprehend and identify their needs.
#5. Competitive Analysis
Your competitive analysis should list both your company’s direct and indirect rivals before concentrating on the latter. Website design businesses are direct competitors.
Customers can choose from retailers that are not direct competitors. These are known as indirect competitors. This includes people who prefer to use platforms with template-based website creation tools or who hire specialized in-house design teams.
Try to know the following about both your direct and indirect competitors:
- What types of customers do they serve?
- Do they specialize in specific site types (i.e., content sites, e-commerce sites, etc.)?
- What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
- What are they good at?
- What are their weaknesses?
It’s also important to know that it won’t be possible for you to know everything about your competitors’ companies unless you previously worked there, so try to have a close relationship with one.
#6. Marketing Plan
Product, Price, Place, and Promotion are the four Ps that traditionally make up a marketing plan. Your marketing plan for a website design business plan should incorporate the following:
- Product: You should restate in the product section the kind of website design firm that you described in your company analysis. Then, go into detail about the particular products you’ll be selling. For instance, will your website design company offer custom design options in addition to WordPress site development?
- Price: List the prices you’ll be willing to offer and how they measure up against those of your rivals. In your marketing plan’s product and price sections, you essentially describe the services you provide and their costs.
- Place: The location of your website design company is referred to as the “place.” Include your location and a statement about how it will affect your success. Will you, for instance, run your business out of a physical office, or will you mostly communicate with customers online, at their homes, or at their places of business? In this section, describe how the demand for your services will be impacted by your location.
- Promotions: The section on promotions is the last in your website design marketing strategy. Here, you will outline your strategy for attracting customers to your business.
Here are other ways to market your website business:
- publicity in regional newspapers and magazines
- Contact regional websites
- Banners and signs
- Flyers
- Using social media
- Local radio commercials
Download our website’s business plan template to guide you on how to write this section of your business plan.
#7. Operations Plan
Your operations plan explains how you will achieve your goals, which were outlined in the earlier sections of your business plan. Your operations strategy should be divided into the following two areas:
- Everyday short-term processes
- Long-term goals
Download our website business plan template to guide you on how to write this section of your website business plan.
#8. Management Team
A solid management team is crucial to proving the viability of your website business. Draw attention to your key players’ backgrounds by highlighting the knowledge and expertise that demonstrate their capacity to expand a business. It would be ideal if you and/or your team members had prior management experience in the website design industry. If so, emphasize your experience and knowledge. Highlight any experience you believe will assist your business’s success.
Consider forming an advisory board if your team is inadequate. An advisory board would be made up of 2–8 people who would serve as business mentors. They would assist with clarification and offer strategic direction. If necessary, search for members of the advisory board who have expertise in running small enterprises or programming.
#9. Financial Plan
Your 5-year financial statement should be broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually in your financial plan. Your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements are all parts of your financial statements.
- Income Statement: A profit and loss statement is another name for an income statement. It displays your revenues before deducting your expenses to determine whether you made a profit or not.
- Balance Sheets: The assets and liabilities listed on your balance sheet are displayed. Even though balance sheets can contain a lot of information, attempt to distil them down to the essentials. Instead, that is a debt you will eventually have to settle.
- Cash Flow Statement: Your cash flow statement can help you evaluate how much money you need to launch or expand your firm and ensure that you never run out of funds. Most business owners and entrepreneurs are unaware of the possibility of making a profit while simultaneously running out of funds and going bankrupt.
When creating your balance sheets and income statements, be sure to include a few of the essential expenses required to launch or expand a website business:
- office construction
- The price of buying or leasing a company car
- The price of office equipment, including computers and software
- Payroll or salary, was given to employees
- Commercial Insurance
- Taxes and licences
- Law-related costs
We’ve created a website business plan template to make this section easier when writing your own website business plan.
#10. Appendix
Include all of your financial estimates in the appendix of your plan, along with any additional materials that can strengthen your case.
Website Business Plan Template
A website business plan template has been created by us to make writing your website business plan easier. The following are included in our website business plan template:
- Executive summary
- Industry analysis
- Market analysis
- Operational plan
- Management team
- Marketing Plan
- Financial information
- Appendix
Download our website business plan template to guide you in writing your own plan.
Why Do You Need a Website Business Plan?
You need a business plan if you want to launch a website business or expand an existing one. A business plan will help you increase your chances of success by planning the expansion of your website design company and raising capital, if necessary. As your business develops and evolves, you should annually update your website business plan.
Also, we advise you to seek out a professional like Business Yield Consult when you are ready to write a business plan for your website business.
Setting Out Your Website’s Objectives
Websites have a function, just like any other investment in a firm. E-commerce websites frequently serve multiple functions simultaneously, ranging from online marketing to customer service. Although their primary objective will be to increase the online sales of particular goods or services, this objective is likely to contain a number of distinct components.
Planning your website requires clearly defining its goals. Choosing your primary goal first is the simplest approach to accomplishing this.
What Are The 4 Types Of Business Plans?
Business plans can be divided into four types:
- Mini-plan
- The presentation plan
- The working plan
- The what-if plan
#1. Mini-plan
Many receivers prefer the mini-plan since they can quickly read it online or save it to their tablet or iPhone for later reading. The majority of the ingredients are the same as they would be in a longer plan, but the tale is still told while cutting to the highlights. It’s usually all you need for a modest business enterprise. You could require the longer version if your business is more complicated.
#2. The Presentation Plan
Since the invention of PowerPoint, many, if not most, plans have been presented differently. The plan may be shorter than its predecessors, but that does not necessarily make it simpler to present. A lot of people worry about going to sleep before presentations, especially ones that could be crucial to the success of their business. However, using a deck to present your strategy can be very effective. Readers of a plan may not always be able to sense your enthusiasm for the enterprise or participate in the discussion that follows. However, you can tell your story and cover all the essential points in just 20 minutes, from the concept and mission statement to the financial projections.
Keep in mind to avoid overcrowding your images, and use comments to highlight your ideas rather than just reading what is in front of your audience.
Even though a presentation plan is brief, it requires much planning. Also, answers must be given to the pertinent questions of who, what, where, why, when, and how.
#3. The Working Plan
An instrument you can use to run your firm is a working plan. It may be light on presentation but extensive in detail. When creating a working plan, you can usually get away with being a little more open-minded and informal.
A plan that is only meant for internal use might also leave out some details that you don’t need to justify to yourself. Similarly, you probably don’t need to add an appendix with key executives’ resumes. A working plan wouldn’t particularly profit from product images, though.
The choice of whether to include or omit a particular piece of information from a working plan may be influenced by internal policy considerations. Many business owners are cautious about their exact take-home pay being known by their staff. You can feel free to protect your privacy to the extent that such information can be omitted from a working plan without compromising its usefulness.
This document is comparable to the worn-out pair of khakis you bring to work on Saturdays or the old delivery truck you never seem to have a problem with. It is intended for use, not admiration.
#4. The What-If Plan
A pro forma business plan, also known as a “what-if plan,” can help you understand the value of an acquisition and how it might impact your core business if your company is considering one. What if you increased prices, made employee training investments, and eliminated redundant work? Planning for what-if scenarios doesn’t have to be as formal as making a presentation. You might wish to consider the likelihood of a significant expansion. You can make wise selections by using a what-if plan to identify the increased needs for space, equipment, employees, and other factors.
What Are The 7 Parts Of a Business Plan?
The following are the 7 parts of a business plan:
#1. Executive Summary
To have a strong and catchy business plan, you need to follow the 7 parts of a business plan. It makes your investors see how serious and focused you are, these are 7 parts that your business plan must have:
Your whole business plan is summarised in the executive summary. It conveys the big picture, and readers will get their initial impression of your business from it. It ought to contain:
- The best aspects of what your business does (or will do)
- Future-oriented plans
- How do you propose to carry out those ideas?
- Why your business will succeed
#2. Company Description
Describe the many components of your company. Clearly explain to readers your objectives, the demands of the market, how your products and services will satisfy those needs, and your company’s competitive advantages.
#3. Market Analysis
Demonstrate your familiarity with the market and sector in which your company will operate. Include the results and recommendations of your research, such as:
- Industry outlook and description
- specifics about your intended audience
- Competitive
#4. Management Team
Describe the ownership and organizational structure of your business, as well as the backgrounds, credentials, and other important details of the management team. Include your company’s legal structure (such as a C or S corporation, general or limited partnership, or a sole proprietorship).
#5. Product Or Service Line
Focus on how your company helps clients and how your specific service or product will meet a demand for your target market.
#6. Marketing Plan
Define your marketing plan, which should be specific to your business and continually assessed. Include any sales techniques you have in place as well as how you will market your goods in your explanation.
#7. A Contingency Plan
Answering questions like:
- How will I handle some of the good and bad situations that come with owning a business?
- What will you do if your product is a resounding success and there is far more demand than you anticipated?
- What will you do if your first few sales are slow?
- How are you going to increase sales?
All of these will help you to document your strategy.
If you require funds, you might add an eighth part that explains how much you require, why you require it, and what you intend to do with it. A statement of your ability to repay loans on your own, in the event that your company is unable to do so, should also be included in this part to support your request.
Download the website business plan template created by us to make writing your plan easier.
What Is a Business Model For a Website?
This is what your website business has chosen to follow or work on. It is advisable to reframe discussions of the business model in terms of sales, costs, expenses, and profits. Consider how your website will help your firm as you build your plan. What are the benefits for your company?
Sales and profits are the simplest payoffs to comprehend, but there may be other benefits as well. Some websites exist just to help sales by simplifying the purchasing process. Others lower costs, boost customer satisfaction or take the place of telephone communication or sales literature.
Final Thought
A website business plan presents a current snapshot of your website design company and outlines your growth strategy for the next five years. It outlines your company’s objectives and your plan for achieving them. Market research is also included to help you with your plans. We have ready to use website business plan created just for you! Business Yield Consult business plan writers are always ready to create your website business plan for you.
FAQs
How many pages should a business plan be UK?
Your business plan should be concise and easy to understand, often no more than 15 to 20 pages, regardless of who you are writing it for.
Should a website have a hosting plan?
Any website must have a hosting plan. Finding a hosting company should be the first step in any new website planning strategy. There are thousands of hosting companies available right now.
What are the 3 types of websites?
The three types of websites are; static, dynamic and eCommerce
