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Home › Start here › Build a website
Start here · Web & commerce

How to create a website for your small business

To create a website for your business, you need a domain name, somewhere to host the site, and a way to build the pages. A website builder bundles the building and hosting so you can publish without a developer, while you register the domain separately or through the builder. After launch, basic SEO work helps people find the site when they search.

By Bill Belcamino · Page updated September 23, 2026 · Our methodologyResearched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team
How to create a website for your small business
Bill Belcamino
Bottom line up frontby Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare
Editorial assessment

Bottom line up front: What does it take to get a small-business website live without a developer?

The builder is the easy part; the domain is the asset to protect, so register it in a business account you control before anyone builds anything.

Of the 3 builders we track, Wix and WordPress start free, but Wix's free plan carries Wix branding and needs a paid plan (from $17/mo) for a custom domain, and WordPress's hosting, themes and plugins cost extra. Squarespace is from $19/mo per site, billed annually, with 2 logins. Here's why the domain matters so much: its DNS settings run your business email as well as your site, so a lapsed renewal or a registrar login held by a former designer can take both offline at once. Turn on auto-renew with a company card that won't expire soon, add two-factor login to the registrar account, and give any designer their own access rather than your password.

My read of the verified data on this page, checked against vendor sources on September 23, 2026. Disagree or spot an error? Tell Bill

How to build a website, step by step

The software this job takes

What to look for

Common mistakes to avoid

What to settle before you buy

Frequently asked questions

How do I build a website for free?

Of the 3 website builder tools we track, Wix and WordPress list a free plan or free tier (limits are in the table above); Squarespace does not. Before you build the whole site on a free plan, check whether it lets you use your own domain and whether it shows the builder's branding.

How do I build a website with AI?

Some builders can draft a first layout and text from a short description of your business. Treat that as a starting draft: check every fact, price and claim before you publish, and rewrite it so it sounds like you.

How do I create a website for my business on Google?

A business profile on Google is a listing, not a full website, but it is worth setting up alongside your site so you show in local search and maps. Link the profile to your own domain so customers can find your full details.

What is the best website builder for a small business?

There is no single answer. The one that fits depends on whether you need bookings, a store or just a brochure site, and who will edit it. The 3 website builder tools we track (Wix, Squarespace and WordPress) are compared in the table above with verified entry prices and billing units.

How we built this page

We start from the job, not the product. The phrasings people search for this job (for example “how to create a website for my business”) come from our research into how small and mid-size teams describe it. Which software categories the job takes is our editorial judgment. Every tool, entry price, billing unit and date comes from HelpCompare’s open dataset, recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page; nothing is estimated, and where a vendor publishes no price we say so. We take no affiliate commissions and publish no scores of our own. See our methodology or download the data from Open Data.

More jobs in Web & commerce

Cite this page: HelpCompare, “How to create a website for your small business”, helpcompare.com/start/build-website/ (updated ).

Source links on this site are checked every month; last check . How sources are checked.

From shortlist to switched

Built for the leader who owns the selection, answers for the spend, drives the rollout, and lives with the results. HelpCompare covers the whole decision, not just the first step.

01 · CompareWhich tool fits your team, side by side.133 comparisons 02 · Price & approveSourced, dated pricing and a one-page brief for sign-off.Decision brief 03 · SwitchWhat moves, what you rebuild, what it costs.264 guides 04 · ShareDownload and cite the data. CC BY 4.0.Open data
Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare
About the author

Bill Belcamino

Founder and author, HelpCompare

Engineer by training, operator by experience, marketer by choice. Bill spent eight and a half years as an engineer at HP, was COO of Auctiva (the number one third-party selling platform on eBay, past 200,000 users) and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. Then he spent 13 years building his own web properties with his own money at stake. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.

“I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”

Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.

Read Bill’s story How we verify pricingSpot an error? Tell Bill