How to make a website for your business
Six steps, about two weeks, and somewhere between R1 200 a year doing it yourself and R7 950 once-off having it built. The order matters more than the tools. Register the domain, arrange hosting, write the content, decide the page list, build the pages, then launch and test. Content is the step that takes longest.
The six steps, in order
Skipping straight to picking a website builder is the most common mistake, and it is the reason so many business sites stall half-finished. Content is the step that takes the longest and it does not depend on the platform at all.
Worth settling the vocabulary first if the quotes you have been given use it inconsistently — what is web design covers the difference between design, development and a website designer.
| Step | What it involves | Realistic time | Cost in rand |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Domain | Register a .co.za in your own name, not your designer's. | 1 hour | R80 – R150 / yr |
| 2. Hosting | Rent the space the site lives in. Local server, for speed. | 1 hour | R60 – R250 / mo |
| 3. Content | Write what you sell, to whom, where, and what it costs. Gather photographs. | 3 – 10 days | R0, or your time |
| 4. Structure | Decide the page list. Five to seven pages suits most small businesses. | Half a day | R0 |
| 5. Build | Lay out the pages, make it work on a phone, connect the enquiry form. | 3 – 7 days | R0 – R7 950 |
| 6. Launch | Test every form, point the domain, submit to Google Search Console. | 1 day | R0 |
Steps 1 and 2 are covered in detail in .co.za domain registration and website hosting in South Africa. Step 4 has its own checklist in what to include on a business website, and what step 6 means for being found is in SEO for a small business website.
What it costs to build a business website from scratch
Building it from scratch yourself is genuinely cheap in rand and genuinely expensive in hours. The honest figure for a first-timer is 30 to 60 hours spread over a month, most of it spent on content and on fighting the mobile layout.
Doing it yourself costs roughly R1 200 to R7 000 a year, depending entirely on the platform:
- WordPress on local hosting — about R1 200 a year all in. Cheapest to own, most to maintain.
- Wix or Squarespace — R3 000 to R7 000 a year, and you cannot export the site if you leave.
- Shopify — R8 000 a year and up before apps. Only worth it if you are genuinely selling products.
Which of those suits you is the whole question, and it is worked through in WordPress vs Wix vs Shopify.
When building it yourself stops being worth it
There is a real answer to this and it is not 'always hire someone'.
Build it yourself if you have the time, you enjoy the fiddling, your business is pre-revenue, or the site only has to exist so people can check you are real. A tidy Wix site you built in a weekend beats a professional site you never commissioned.
Have it built when the hours cost more than the quote. Thirty hours of your time is worth more than R2 950 for most trading businesses. Also when the site has to rank — search visibility is structural, and it is the part self-builders most often get wrong without knowing it — or when you need payments, bookings or anything that breaks quietly.
The failure mode worth naming: starting it yourself, getting eighty percent there, and leaving it unfinished for a year. A half-built site does more damage than no site, because people find it and draw conclusions.
Or skip the six steps. We do all of it for a fixed once-off price — domain, hosting, content, build and launch — from R2 950, live in about two weeks. The full inclusion list is on the website design packages page.
Where we build websites
Every build is done remotely, so the whole country is covered at the same price. We keep dedicated pages for the metros most enquiries come from: Cape Town · Johannesburg · Pretoria · Durban · Sandton · Port Elizabeth · Bloemfontein.
Common questions
How do I create a company website?
The same six steps, with one addition: register the domain to the company rather than to a director personally, so it survives a change of shareholding. Everything else — domain, hosting, content, structure, build, launch — runs identically.
How do I design a website for business rather than for myself?
Design it around one action. A personal site can be a gallery; a business website has to make one thing obvious — call, enquire, book or buy — on every page. If a visitor cannot tell what you want them to do next, the design has failed regardless of how it looks.
How long does it take to make a business website?
About two weeks if someone builds it for you and your content is ready. Four to six weeks realistically if you build it yourself around an existing job. The variable is almost never the building — it is the writing.
Can I make a business website for free?
Not one worth having. Free tiers put you on a subdomain like yourbusiness.wixsite.com with platform advertising on your pages, which reads as unserious to exactly the buyers you want. The minimum credible spend is a domain plus hosting, about R1 200 a year.
Do I need a web designer, or is a template enough?
A template is enough when your business looks like the template's assumptions. It stops being enough when you need a specific enquiry flow, local payments, or to rank against competitors who have had sites for a decade.
What do I need ready before I start?
Your service list with prices or price ranges, your service area, contact details, and photographs of real work. Businesses that have those four things ready build in days. Businesses that do not take months.
Get a fixed price for your website
Tell us what you need and we will send a fixed quote, usually the same working day.