How to make a website: 8 steps for a small business
You can make a website for your business in a weekend without writing code. Here are the steps in the order to take them: from the domain and the choice of tool to the texts, the Danish rules and the launch. With realistic prices along the way.
Updated
1. Decide what the site must do
Start with the customer, not the design. What should a visitor be able to do: call, write, book a time or buy something? The answer decides which pages you need and what the site will cost.
Most small businesses manage with five pages:
- Home: what you do, for whom and where. With a clear button to get in touch.
- Services or products: one page per service, if customers search for each one separately.
- Prices: even a price range moves the customer along.
- About: who is behind the business, ideally with a real photo.
- Contact: phone, email, address, opening hours and a contact form.
Need a web shop or online booking? Put it on the list now. Those two add the most cost and time.
2. Find and buy a domain
The domain is your address online, such as yourbusiness.dk. For a Danish business, .dk is the obvious choice: Danish customers recognise and trust it. You buy it from a domain provider (a registrar), and a .dk domain typically costs under DKK 200 a year.
Pick a name that is short and easy to spell and to say on the phone. Avoid hyphens and numbers if you can. Register it in the business’s name, so it goes with the business if it changes hands.
3. Choose how to build it
There are three ways. The right one depends on how much time and money you want to spend, and whether you want to edit it yourself afterwards.
| Website builder | WordPress, yourself | Freelancer or agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| To start | No build fee | None, but themes and plugins can cost | DKK 12,000–30,000 (freelancer), DKK 35,000–90,000 (agency) |
| Yearly | The subscription | DKK 1,000–6,000 for hosting and domain, plus licences | DKK 5,000–30,000 with a service agreement |
| Your time | A few days | Several days, plus ongoing updates | Meetings, texts and feedback |
| Edit it yourself | Yes, in a visual editor | Yes, once you have learned it | Often through the agency |
Prices exclude VAT, for a small five-page site. To work out your own, use the cost calculator: it compares the three ways over the first year and over three years.
A website builder (such as Striive, Wix, one.com or Webador) is the fastest way for most small businesses: hosting, security and updates are handled for you. WordPress gives the most freedom, but you look after updates to its core, theme and plugins yourself.
Use it here: Website cost calculator, Website builders compared: Striive vs. Wix and more
4. Build the pages and pick a design
Build the pages from step 1, one at a time. Choose a simple, readable design over a striking but heavy one: dark text on a light background, large buttons and a menu of six items at most.
More than half of visits typically come from a phone, so check every page on yours before you move on. Compress your images so the page loads fast, and check that the text has enough contrast to read in sunlight.
Use it here: Image compressor, Colour contrast checker, Favicon generator
5. Write the texts
The texts are what makes a customer call, and they are what Google reads. Write the way you talk to a customer: short, concrete and in the words the customer uses. If your customers search for "electrician in Viborg", those words belong on the page.
Only use images you have the rights to: your own, bought ones, or free images under a licence that allows it. A picture found on Google can turn into an expensive bill from the photographer.
6. Follow the Danish rules
A business website has to meet a few requirements. Most are quick to handle:
- Business details: name, address, email and CVR number must be on the site (the Danish E-commerce Act, §7). The footer is the obvious place.
- Privacy policy: if you have a contact form or a newsletter, you collect personal data and must say what you do with it (GDPR).
- Cookie banner: if you use cookies for analytics or marketing, such as Google Analytics or the Meta Pixel, the visitor must say yes before they are set. Strictly necessary cookies need no consent.
- Prices for consumers: prices shown to private customers must include VAT and all charges.
- Selling online: then you also need terms of sale and must state the 14-day right of withdrawal.
Not sure whether your site needs a cookie banner? Take the test in our cookie banner checker. It takes a minute.
Use it here: Cookie banner checker, Cookie banner
7. Get it ready for Google
Give every page its own title and description that say what the page is about and where you are. They are what Google shows in its results, and they decide whether people click.
Create a free Google Business Profile so you can appear on Google Maps, and add the site to Google Search Console to see what people search for when they find you. Ask customers, partners and your trade association to link to you. Links from Danish sites about the same subject help most.
Use it here: Google SERP preview, Local business schema generator, Open Graph preview
8. Test and go live
Before you point the domain at the site, go through the list:
- Send a message through the contact form and check that it arrives.
- Click every link and button, including the menu on a phone.
- Check the phone number, email, address and opening hours once more.
- Connect the domain and check that the address shows the padlock (HTTPS).
- Share the site with a few customers and ask what they could not find.
After the launch: keep it current. A site where the prices, photos and opening hours are right is the best advertising you have.
Use it here: Your own domain
Frequently asked questions
On a website builder, a small five-page site can be ready in a few days if the texts are written. With a freelancer or an agency, expect a few weeks, as design, texts and changes go back and forth.
Yes. A website builder lets you build pages in a visual editor, clicking and typing straight on the page. With an AI assistant you can also just write what should change.
A small site typically costs DKK 12,000–30,000 excluding VAT from a freelancer and DKK 35,000–90,000 from an agency, plus running costs every year. Build it yourself on a website builder and you pay only the subscription and your domain.
Only if it sets cookies that are not strictly necessary, such as for analytics or marketing. If you use Google Analytics, YouTube videos or the Meta Pixel, you usually need consent first.
Choose WordPress if you need very specific functions and have time to maintain it. Choose a website builder if you want to get going fast and not look after updates, hosting and security yourself.