| If you're launching a new business — whether it's ecommerce, a consultancy, or a creator project — one of your first moves is to build an online presence, usually starting with a website. | | Going online itself isn't the hard part. The real challenge is knowing what to focus on first. | | This guide walks through the key steps required to build an online presence, focusing on what actually matters in your first few months. | | We spoke with founders and small business experts to pull together practical advice and examples you can learn from. | Step 1: Define your business in one sentence | | Start by writing a one-line descriptor that clearly explains what you do, who you help, and which problems you solve. | | This sentence becomes the baseline for your homepage, service pages, and how you talk about your business everywhere else. | | "The most important thing is to make sure that the site clearly says what you do, who you do it for, how well you do it, and what specifically you do. Nothing else will work unless the site is clear." — Andy Crestodina, co-founder and CMO at Orbit Media | | | Take Coa — a platform providing a therapist-led learning experience. Its "gym for mental health" tagline works because it borrows a familiar concept everyone understands (gym as a place for regular practice, professional guidance, and ongoing improvement) and applies it to mental wellness. | | Use this template to write your own one-line description:
| | "I/We help [who] [do / achieve] by [how you do it], so they can [solve problems or get outcomes]." | | Let's say you have a business selling ready-made meals for busy moms. Your description line could be shaped as: | | "We help busy moms feed their families healthy, balanced meals without the hassle of cooking every night." | | The sentence is simple, shows exactly the value offered, and makes it clear who it's for. | Step 2: Focus on one audience (not everyone) | | Choose one specific audience to focus on and make sure your website is built primarily for them. | | When you try to speak to everyone, your messaging gets vague and harder to act on. | | Prioritizing one target market early makes your site clearer, faster to build, and easier to improve. | | "Audience alignment is the number one and the most important thing in a strategic partnership. You have to get extremely clear on who you serve. The clearer you get on that, the easier everything else becomes." — Jimmy Newson, founder and CEO of Moving Forward Small Businesses.
| | | To identify this ideal customer profile, narrow your focus using the criteria below: | - Who has the problem you solve: Think about who needs your services or products right now.
- Who can you reach: There might be a large market for your business, but think about a smaller audience segment you can reach right now.
- What they need: Once you've narrowed down your target audience, focus on understanding their pain points and how you can address them.
| Kat Boogard demonstrates this on her hiring page by clearly defining the types of businesses she works with — such as software companies in the "world of work" space that already have a strategy and understand results take time: | | Tip: Whenever you redefine your ideal customer profile — or learn more about your audience — make sure you update your one-line business description. | Step 3: Create a homepage that explains what you do | | Your homepage should make it crystal clear what you do and who you serve within five seconds. | | This means writing headlines and copy that your target audience can understand instantly — clarity beats cleverness every time: | | "People are buying you. They want to like you, trust you, and understand you. If they don't understand you, they're not going to move forward." — Sarah Noel Block, founder of Tiny Marketing | | | Your homepage needs three core elements:
| - A one-line description of the problem you solve and who it's for, written as a clear, specific tagline.
- Content that shows what makes you different or better than other solutions.
- A clear call to action to buy, explore, or learn more about your products and services, or sign up for a lead magnet.
| Using our meal service business as an example, I applied these elements to build a homepage with WordPress.com's AI website builder using the following prompt:
| | "Create a website called "Easy Nourish" that provides meal services for busy moms who want to feed healthy meals to their families every night without the hassle of cooking every day. Keep the tone lighthearted and empathetic. The color palette should be sky blue." | | The homepage makes the value clear at a glance: ready-to-heat meals for busy moms, with a clear next step to try the service. | You bring the idea — AI makes it real | | Use our AI website builder for free today. | | | | | | | | Step 4: Create niche-specific pages on your site | | Next, create dedicated pages for your main offers, so visitors can land directly on what they need. | | Separate your core services and offerings into their own pages, then keep foundational pages such as About and Pricing focused and easy to scan. | | This makes navigation clearer, improves search visibility for specific queries, and gives each offer a place to explain outcomes, proof, and next steps. | | For example, Justin Moore has a standalone page for each of his offerings (coaching, course, and event) on his website: | | When mapping out your pages: | - Write down the exact services or offers you want people to pay for (for example: career coaching, website design, tax consulting) and create one page per service.
- Focus on long-tail phrases such as "career coaching for women working in tech in Barcelona" to attract people with a clear, specific need.
- State clearly what the service is, who it's for, and how to get in touch or buy, without making people hunt for information.
| Tip: A simple way to check if your pages work is to ask a few people to click through your site and tell you what feels unclear or hard to find. | | "Have other people go through the site, because they'll see things you're blind to. You might think something is clever, but it's actually stopping people from getting where they want to go." — Jimmy Newson, founder and CEO of Moving Forward Small Businesses | | Step 5: Show the human(s) and vision behind the business | | Share your story on your site — who you are, why you do this work, and what you care about — not just what you sell. | | For small businesses, trust is the differentiator and a way to compete with bigger brands. People trust people, not logos or vague brand statements. | | "If I were starting again, I'd put my face on the homepage. People are not buying a logo. They're buying trust." — Andy Crestodina, Co-founder & CMO, Orbit Media | | | Here's how you can achieve this with your new website:
| - Include real people: Add your (or your team's) image over stock images. It will help people instantly recognize and connect with you.
- Share why you care: Explain the mission behind your work. When your audience understands your why, it helps them trust you more.
- Add your background story: Briefly explain how you came to start your business. Use first person language if appropriate and don't be afraid to showcase your expertise in the business.
| Instead of hiding behind a logo or generic brand language, she puts herself front and center — Tammy with pink hair, openly sharing her goal of helping people find remote work opportunities. | | The key is to write the way you speak and let your personality shine. Avoid fussing too much over sounding smart, professional, or clever. | Step 6: Set up the technical basics to go live | | Your site should be reliable, secure, and easy to manage from day one, so you can focus on growing your business instead of troubleshooting technical issues. | | These technical foundations create a smooth experience for your customers while freeing you to do what you do best:
| - Reliable web hosting: Your site needs to load fast and stay online 24/7.
- Tight security: An essential investment to ensure your site remains free of malware, hacks, and spam.
- Regular updates and backups: This will ensure your site continues to run smoothly and there is no risk of data being lost.
- Basic site analytics: These will provide essential and usable data on how people are finding and using your site.
| Tip: Many small businesses choose WordPress.com's managed hosting because these essentials are built in without extra setup. If you're creating your site with the AI website builder, you can simply choose a relevant plan after you finish building your site. | Step 7: Create high-impact assets for your site | | From here, focus on publishing a few high-quality pieces — comprehensive guides, detailed case studies, or in-depth tutorials that genuinely help your audience. | | It's tempting to pad your site with lots of surface-level blog posts just to "have content," but that often backfires. | | Thin, semi-useful pieces quietly erode trust and leave visitors unimpressed. Quality beats quantity every time. | | "Don't start with thin content. Start with something big. Publish the detailed thing that explains your thinking or what works based on research." — Andy Crestodina, co-founder and CMO at Orbit Media | | | Instead of publishing dozens of thin articles on history, the site only shares deeply researched, well-written, in-depth articles and academic papers: | | As a starting point, concentrate your efforts on three or four core topics you can cover exceptionally well — fewer pieces, higher standards, and content that actually earns attention. | Step 8: Join the conversation in your niche | | Build relationships in your niche by joining communities where your target audience already gathers — both on public platforms such as LinkedIn and in smaller, targeted communities. | | This helps you build an online presence through real relationships and understand your niche on a deeper level. | | Show up consistently, pay attention to what people are asking, and contribute helpfully before promoting anything. | | "The new currency is community. Instead of trying to blast a message to thousands of people, have real, direct conversations with people in the places they already show up — whether that's private groups, forums, or smaller communities." — Jimmy Newson, Founder & CEO, Moving Forward Small Businesses | | | Here's how you can build a network strategically: | - List the people who lead or influence communities in your niche.
- Send personalized connection requests focused on starting a conversation, not making an ask.
- Show up consistently over time so your feed reflects the people and topics you actually care about.
| Tip: Look for the smaller, intentionally-built communities where your target audience gathers. | | "The best clients come from small, private communities. Slack groups, invite-only groups, places you can't just search for. You don't find them through Google. You find them by asking people: where do you hang out online? Ask your customers or peers what communities they're part of. If you're a good fit, you'll often get invited." — Sarah Noel Block, founder of Tiny Marketing | | | For example, The Mom Collective is a community of moms in Barcelona where participants discuss the challenges they are facing, share new things they've learned, and organize meet-ups. | | If you're running a business catering to this audience and you meet the criteria, it's a good idea to join this group. | Step 9: Contribute to external sources to boost your visibility | | Instead of waiting for people to find your site, borrow attention from places your audience already trusts. | | This can include guest appearances on podcasts, writing for industry blogs or newsletters, being quoted in articles, or collaborating with complementary businesses. | | "Podcast guesting is the main reason my website ranks so well. I have hundreds of backlinks because of those guest appearances, and my last clients all came from that." — Sarah Noel Block, founder of Tiny Marketing | | | Visibility opportunities will come your way organically when you focus on building a community in your niche. To take a more proactive approach:
| - Research the intricacies of the influential voices and platforms in your niche — what do they publish, which topics they cater to, what is missing from their catalog, and what value can you add.
- Pitch yourself as a guest by showcasing the value you bring to the table — highlight your unique perspective and explain why you'd be a good fit in the community.
Step 10: Treat effort and consistency as your KPIs | | In the early days, measure your success by effort and consistency — not external metrics. | | Traffic and subscriber metrics take time to grow. In the early days, it's more useful to measure your effort with internal benchmarks such as: | - Content published: guides, service pages, or guest posts you've published.
- Collaborations initiated: podcast appearances, guest articles, or partnerships started.
- Real conversations: calls, DMs, or feedback sessions with customers and potential partners.
| "When you're new, track success based on activity, not performance. It would be strange to see big results early on — what matters is staying consistently active and building the foundation." — Andy Crestodina, Co-founder & CMO, Orbit Media | | | Growing your online presence from zero requires time and effort and doesn't typically provide immediate rewards — but the payoff is totally worth it. | Step 11: Build community through real conversations | | Finally, have direct conversations with your audience to understand their real needs, gather feedback, and refine your business based on what you learn. | - Scheduling regular 1:1 calls with early customers to gather feedback.
- Participating in community discussions where your target audience is present.
- Maintaining relationships with your peers who share the same target audience and want to solve similar problems.
| "Instead of trying to reach a thousand people, talk to seven. Those direct conversations will give you more insight than anything else — and they'll shape your messaging, offers, and direction far better than broadcasting ever will."— Jimmy Newson, Founder & CEO, Moving Forward Small Businesses | | | Rishabh Goyal — founder of Dodo Payments — demonstrates this well. He interacts with relevant Reddit threads without pushing his product, staying genuinely helpful and curious about solving problems. | | This provides him with understanding of his audience's real needs and builds direct, two-way communication with the community. | Build your online presence in 2026 | | Building an online presence for your new business doesn't have to feel overwhelming.
| | The secret is knowing what to tackle first: Get clear on what you do and who you serve, create a homepage that reflects that clarity, and build momentum through real conversations and consistent effort.
| | WordPress.com makes this entire process simpler. | | | | |
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