In what order to sort out your online presence when you have just started trading, what is urgent, and the two things most people buy too early.
You have registered, you have insurance, you have told everyone you know, and now somebody has said you need a website, a logo, social media and an email newsletter. All at once, all this week, and you have not invoiced anybody yet.
Most of that can wait. Some of it should never be bought at all in the first year. Here is the order we would actually do it in, having watched a lot of people do it in the wrong one.
Week one: be findable and be contactable
Before anything else, two things.
A phone number you will answer, and an email address on a domain you own. Not because a free email looks unprofessional, though it does. Because a business email increasingly lands in spam, and a quote nobody receives looks exactly like a quote you never sent.
A Google Business Profile. This is free, it takes about twenty minutes, and for a local trade it is worth more in the first six months than a website is. When somebody searches for what you do plus where you are, the map results appear above everything else. If you are not in there, you are not in the running.
Fill it in properly. The right primary category, your actual service area, your hours, and photographs of real work rather than stock images. Then ask your first few customers for a review while the job is still fresh in their mind.
If you do nothing else in your first month, do this.
Weeks two to four: somewhere to send people
Now you need a page that exists when someone looks you up, because they will. Not a big site. A page.
What it has to answer, in this order: what you do, where you do it, some evidence you have done it before, and how to reach you. That is it. Four things.
It does not need a blog, an online shop, a booking system or an About Us page describing your passion for excellence. Those come later if they come at all.
The reason to have it early is not the website itself, it is that it makes everything else work. Your Google listing links to it. Your invoices reference it. Someone who was given your number by a friend checks it before ringing, and either reassures themselves or does not.
What people buy too early
Two things, consistently.
A logo. A designed identity is a real thing worth paying for eventually. In month one it is a few hundred pounds that produces no work. Your name set cleanly in a decent typeface is entirely acceptable for a year, and by then you will know what your business actually is, which is when a logo gets easier to design.
Paid advertising. Advertising sends people to your website to decide about you. If the website is not there, or is not convincing yet, you are buying visits to a page that cannot do its job. Get the free things working first: the listing, the reviews, the page. Advertise when you know what converts.
Months two and three: only now, the rest
Once work is coming in, you will discover what is actually slowing you down. It is different for everybody, and it is almost never what you expected.
If you are losing jobs because you cannot answer the phone on a roof, that is a call-handling problem. If quotes take you two evenings a week, that is a paperwork problem. If people ask you the same six questions before booking, those six answers belong on your website where they can read them at eleven at night.
Solve the one that is costing you money. Ignore the rest until it starts costing you money too.
The legal bit nobody mentions
If you are trading in Spain, a commercial website has to carry certain identifying information about who is behind it, and there are rules about cookies and about handling enquiries. It is not onerous and it is not optional. We covered it separately in the legal requirements for a website in Spain.
Common questions
Can I just use social media instead of a website?
You can start there and plenty do. Understand the trade: you are building on land you do not own, on terms that can change, and you cannot be found there by someone searching for your trade and your town. Use it as a shop window, not as the shop.
What should a first website cost?
Less than you fear. Our own is £150 to £300 to set up and then £49 a month covering hosting, updates, changes and support, with no lock-in. What matters more than the number is what happens in month eight when you need something changed and the person who built it has moved on.
Do I need a .com?
No. Use whatever is available, short and says who you are. For a business trading locally in Spain, a .es is completely normal and often easier to get. What matters is that it is registered in your name, which is worth checking early - see who actually owns your domain.
When should I start writing content?
Once you have a page that works and jobs coming in. Content is a compounding investment and it needs a foundation to compound on.
The short version
Google listing, a contactable email, one honest page. Everything else waits until the work tells you what it needs.
If you have just started out and want a straight answer about what is worth doing now versus in six months, tell us what you do. We will tell you if the honest answer is not yet, because a customer who buys the wrong thing in month one does not stay a customer.