Italian companies, regardless of their size, seem not to have much feeling for new technologies. As shown by the report "Citizens, Businesses and ICT in Italy" published by ISTAT in 2019, the level of digitalization of Italian companies is not high at all, with SMEs playing the role of Cinderella (just 12.2% have high levels of business digitalization, while 86.6% are at a low or very low level in ICT adoption)
One figure more than the others, then, should cause concern: only 71% of Italian companies have a website. This means that 3 out of 10 companies give up having online visibility, losing opportunities to be known not only in Italy, but also outside the national borders. Probably what is holding them back is the lack of adequate professional profiles within their staff. From the ISTAT report, in fact, emerges the lack of ICT professionalism in small and medium-sized enterprises: only 12% of companies with fewer than 50 employees have professionals with ICT skills in the workforce, while it is almost completely absent an investment plan in training in this area.
In short, a sort of digital apocalypse, which has strong repercussions on the front of visibility and competitiveness, especially at international level. And to say that creating a company website is less complex and difficult than you might think: it would be enough to follow some precise guidelines and create a modern, professional portal, able to attract new customers. Here are some tips on how to create company websites.
Choosing a CMS platform
The first step to take when you want to create a company website is to choose a platform for managing and publishing websites (in technical jargon CMS, content management system). These softwares, usually free and easily downloadable from the Internet, allow to create a website in a modular way, like Lego constructions: you choose the graphic theme, the plugins and the additional modules, you create the pages and the website tree and then you go online.
The CMS, as you can imagine, there are dozens of them, but some are more suitable than others for those who are beginners. WordPress and Joomla, for example, are among the most used free CMS: easy to use and very versatile, they allow you to create interactive portals and, with the addition of ad hoc plugins, start selling products online by creating a professional e-commerce.
Domain name and hosting
After choosing the publishing platform you will have to decide domain name and hosting. The domain name is the URL by which users will reach your business website; hosting, instead, is the company that will provide the servers that will host the portal. At a first glance they may seem secondary choices, but the exact opposite is true: both the choice of the name and the choice of hosting will have a certain relevance in terms of organic positioning of the site.
Although it is a secondary factor, in fact, the URL has its own relevance in content indexing strategies. Usually, it is advisable to choose a domain that contains the main keyword of your project (in technical terms, an EMD domain, exact match domain): in this case, it is the name of your company, of course.
Hosting, on the other hand, is becoming more and more important. Update after update, search engines tend to increasingly reward websites that can load quickly. Choosing a hosting provider that ensures minimum latency times and great speed in loading the site with all its modules will help when we aim to win new customers thanks to SEO. Obviously, everything must be related to your needs and your budget, but don't stop at the first offer you find: study well what services are offered by at least 3 or 4 providers and find out the right one for you.
Design and creation of the website architecture
Having reached this point, you will have to start thinking about the structure of the company website. That is, what should be the sections that compose it (and the corresponding menu items) and the various subsections necessary to explain the activities carried out by your company. You'll have to create a conceptual map composed of several levels: the main ones will have to deal directly with your company (the history, the locations, the activities carried out or the products made, a possible space for e-commerce and one for the blog); the secondary ones, instead, will have to enrich the first level headings, providing readers with additional data and information (for example, it could be useful to insert in the heading company products or services some successful case histories to show your best works).
Having done this, you'll have to study the semantic field and identify the most useful keywords on which to position yourself. This is a long job that could present some difficulties, but if it is well done, it will give you several satisfactions in terms of visits from search engines.
Content Design and Creation
Now that you have the project of the company website structure, you have to turn it into reality. You will have to design and create the content, taking care to respect the good practices of SEO to be able to position yourself at the top of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Being able to position yourself, of course, is not even entirely obvious: anyone can publish content on the Internet and the competition, therefore, is always very high. You'll have to create complete and exhaustive content, able to describe perfectly the topics and provide new and accurate information to the readers.
Why use a team of professionals
If you want to get immediate results, and you are one of those Italian companies with little expertise in the world of ICT, it is more than advisable to contact an agency that can follow you through all the steps and help you create a professional and functional website. Choosing Italiaonline, the largest Italian media company, you will have the certainty of a dedicated team that will help you to create the perfect website for your company or your business.
With the IOL Website service you can count on the professionalism and experience of our technicians, ready to assist you to create a website exactly as you want it. You will be able to choose between responsive graphic layouts and ideal for every eventuality, indicate the sections of the menu and internal pages and have at your disposal a consultant who will accompany you throughout the process of creating the portal. The site will be built with SEO optimized content and written by professional copywriters, which will allow you to climb positions in the Google SERP and attract the attention of new potential customers.