Checklist for your business

Setting up a business, buying a domain name, creating a website, increasing your ranking in search engines. These are just some of the tasks required to get a business online and discovered. For many businesses it can be time consuming, too technical or too expensive. Below we have created a simple checklist to help your business keep track of its progress.

Create a free account to track these tasks for your business.

Setting up a business

Some of the basic steps required for setting up a new business.

Think of a name for your business

This can be one of the most important things you do. Your business name will represent how people know you and their perception of what you do. There is a great government tool called OneCheck which can tell you if similar companies exist, if the domain names are available and how original it is for Trade Marking.

You can register your company on the Companies Office website.

Open a business bank account

Talk to your existing bank to see what they can offer you.

Read the guide on the IRD website for Registering a GST number.

Create a business logo

Design your own, use a website logo tool to design one or pay a designer to create one for you.

Create business cards

Not every business will need business cards. But if you want to hand out your contact details you can design a card, either yourself or pay a design company to do it, then find a local pringing company to print them (it usually doesn't cost too much).

Setup email addresses for your business

Usually the company hosting your domain name will provide services for doing this.

Setup a payment or invoicing system

Whether this is old fashioned paper invoices, emails, an EFT-POS terminal in store or online payments via your website, you will need some way to take payments from your customers.

Keeping tax records

There is a legal requirement to keep accurate tax records. You can do this with a number of different systems like MYOB or Xero.

Getting online

Most of these tasks can be done via one provider and it is a balance between cost vs effort and customisability of your site. digitalStorefront aims to simplify this process by helping with all of these tasks and at a reasonable price.

There are a lot of different companies that allow you to register a domain name. Choose one the email addresses and website hosting that you need as well so you can get everything you need in one place.

Host your domain name

Some domain companies charge extra for hosting your domain name so look into this before purchasing.

Find somewhere to host a website

For simplicity this should be the same company you purchase and host the domain name with.

Build your website

Building websites can range from custom design to using a template or site builder to build your site.

Create content for your website

This needs to explain what your company does, the services it offers and how you offer value to your customers.

Create a Contact Us page

This allows customers to contact you with enquiries, issues or requests for work from your website. It can lead to new customers but also saves having to manage phone calls while you're working.

Purchase an SSL certificate for your website

An SSL certificate allows secure encription of your site. All sites should be using this by now and Google discourages sites without https. This can be an extra cost but we provide one for free.

Optimising your website for search engines

Once your business is online and operating you will want to optimise your site for top rankings in the search engines, setup a social presence (if it is relevant to your business) and consider digital advertising.

Registering with Google My Business gives you a free placing oin Search results and Gogle Maps. You can respond to customer reviews and provide details such as open hours so that your business is more discoverable.

Set meta description and keyword tags on the pages of your website

These tags help search engines index and correctly direct customers to your pages.

Set up an online social presence

Setting up a social presence such as a Facebook business page or Twitter account allows you to interact with your customers, push events and marketing at them and gather feedback.

Consider online marketing or advertising

This could be advertising on relevant sites such as Stuff.co.nz or social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook.