How To Create A Business Website In Nigeria

Introduction

Did you know that having a business website can increase your chances of getting found online by up to 90%? According to research, small businesses with websites are 90% more likely to be found online than those without websites.

A well-designed business website is important for your Nigerian business to reach new customers, increase brand visibility, and drive sales.

This guide will take you through the three necessary phases to build a business website in Nigeria: Preparation, design & development & Maintenance phases.

Phase One: Preparation

Step 1: Gather Requirements

The first step to building a business website in Nigeria is requirement gathering. A business website is different from other websites—like a personal or portfolio website—with a different set of requirements. Before commencing a website design project, create a requirements document. This should typically contain:

Outline the Business Website Goals

Outline the goals for designing the website; these should be linked to the overall business goals. These goals will help set direction, stay focused, and not veer off track as the project progresses. When writing these goals, keep these questions in mind:

• What particular goals do I hope to accomplish with my website?
• Are my objectives SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound)?
• How does my website fit into the long-term goals I have for my company?
  Remember, clearly defining your goals sets your website on the right track to becoming a great tool to promote your brand and gain customers, not just another fancy tech asset.

Clearly Define & State Your Target Audience

Your business website should be tailored and targeted at your target audience. To do this, you’ll need to understand and clearly define your target audience.

“People who need my services” or “Men in Lagos – 45 and below” are examples of a poorly understood and outlined target audience.

Your target audience should be clearly defined—for example:

“Tech-savvy millennials aged 25-34, living in urban areas, with disposable income of $50,000-$80,000 annually, who are passionate about sustainable living and frequently shop online for eco-friendly gadgets.”

Identifying and clearly stating your target audience is very important; it’ll help build a website that connects with them, eventually leading to conversions.

Identify the Desired Functionalities

List the website functions that are important to both your business and your audience. The required functionalities of a service-based business, like spas or beauty salons, would vary widely from e-commerce businesses.

Common required website functionalities are: blogs, contact forms, booking (especially for service-based businesses), online payment options, live chat, etc. We recommend using the MoSCoW Method:

• Must-Have: Critical for the website to function and meet its core purpose.
• Should-Have: Important but not critical; can be delayed if necessary.
• Could-Have: Nice-to-have features that enhance the user experience but are not essential.
• Won’t-Have: Features explicitly excluded from the current scope.

The website requirements document should include the following elements in addition to business goals, target audience, and website functionality: Project Overview and Scope, Non-Functional Requirements, Technical Requirements, Design and User Experience (UX) Requirements, and Security and Compliance Requirements.

Requirement gathering is very important for a successful website design project. Read this post, “Requirement Gathering for a Website Design Project,” for a practical guide on requirement gathering.

Step 2: Get a Professional

The next step in the preparation phase is to engage a professional team. While the “do it yourself” approach has become popular recently, evidenced by multiple “DIY” builders and YouTube videos, we strongly encourage you not to go that route. Opting for DIY website builders can lead to significant drawbacks, such as a lack of customization and scalability, poor security and compliance, suboptimal performance, and a website that actively hurts your business by turning away potential clients.

Getting a professional to design and develop your business website in Nigeria—there are three options available. Below, we compared the three options (in-house developer, freelancer, and website design agency), stating the pros and cons associated with each option.

Option	Pro’s	Con’s
In-house developer	Full-time focus on your business, offering a deep understanding of internal goals and processes Direct communication and faster decision-making for updates. Long-term alignment with company culture and vision.	High costs, including salary, benefits, and training, can strain budgets, especially for small businesses. Limited skill set, as one developer, may not excel in all areas (e.g., UX/UI design, SEO, security). Risk of downtime if the developer leaves or is unavailable, delaying projects or updates.
Freelancer	Cost-effective for small, one-off projects, with competitive rates compared to agencies. Flexible scheduling, allows you to hire for specific tasks or short-term needs. Potential for specialized skills if you find the right individual.	Reliability concerns, as freelancers, may juggle multiple clients, leading to delays or unavailability.   Limited scope, as freelancers often specialize in one area, requiring you to hire multiple freelancers for complex projects. Lack of long-term support, as freelancers may move on to other projects, leaving you to handle maintenance or issues.
Website design agency	Access to a team of experts with diverse skills (e.g., design, development, SEO, security, project management), ensuring a high-quality, professional website. Reliable project management, with structured timelines, clear communication, and accountability, minimizing delays. Scalability and long-term support, as agencies can handle updates, maintenance, and future expansions, aligning with your business growth. Compliance with industry standards, including security, accessibility, and SEO, reducing risks and enhancing performance.	Higher upfront costs compared to freelancers, though the investment often yields better ROI due to quality and support. Less direct control compared to an in-house developer, though agencies typically involve clients in key decisions. May require more time for initial onboarding to align with your vision, though this ensures a tailored, strategic approach.

Having compared the three options, it is evident that engaging a website design agency is the preferred option. While having an in-house developer or freelancer design your website has some benefits, as a business in Nigeria, the downsides far outweigh the benefits. Except in cases of an extremely tight budget, you should always opt for the website design agency option.

Step 3: Register a Domain Name

A domain name is a human-readable address of a website on the internet. It acts as a simple and memorable alternative to an IP address, which is a series of numbers, such as 192.168.1.1. An example of a domain name is “google.com”—without this domain name, anytime you wanted to visit Google, you’d need to remember and type in Google’s IP address, “172.217.167.68.”

You can think of a domain name as the address of your website’s house. To register a domain name in Nigeria, follow these steps:

1. Choose a relevant and memorable domain name: Your domain name should be your business name or a very close variant. For example, if your business name is Blue Hound Solutions, your domain name should be bluehoundsolutions.com or a close variant like bluehound-solutions.com.ng. Don’t opt for a domain name that’s extremely different from your business name, like thegrayhoundinnovative.com.
2. Check availability using a domain registrar: After deciding on a domain name, the next step is to find out if the domain name is available or has already been purchased by someone else. To do this, visit the registrar’s website (e.g., Namecheap, GoDaddy), go to the domain search bar, and enter the desired domain name. The search results will indicate if the domain is already taken or open for registration.
3. Purchase the domain for an appropriate period, considering renewal costs: After checking the availability of a domain name, you will go ahead to purchase it for the appropriate period and consider the renewal cost to avoid losing ownership of the domain name. Search engine ranking can be raised by using a domain name that contains pertinent keywords.

Step 3: Register Your Hosting

Hosting is the service that allows you to rent a space on the internet for your website content (HTML, CSS, and image files). Similar to the prior illustration, if the domain name is the address, hosting is the lease on the piece of land where you’ll build your website.

To buy hosting for your business website in Nigeria, follow these steps:

1. Research: Research local (e.g., Whogohost, truehost, Host Africa) and international (e.g., Namecheap, GoDaddy) hosting providers based on your specific website requirements. You should compare performance, security, support, and cost.
2. Select Hosting Plan: After completing hosting provider research and deciding on the preferred provider, you’ll then need to select the most suitable plan for your business website from your chosen provider. Most hosting providers have different offerings at different price ranges suitable for different needs, such as:
   1. Shared Hosting: A hosting plan where multiple websites share the same server resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage. Best for small businesses, personal blogs, or websites with low to moderate traffic that don’t require extensive customization or high performance.
   2. VPS (Virtual Private Server): A virtualized server where resources are divided among multiple users, but each user has dedicated portions of CPU, RAM, and storage, offering more control and isolation than shared hosting. Best for growing websites, small e-commerce stores, or businesses needing more customization, performance, and security than shared hosting provides.
   3. Dedicated Server: A physical server exclusively allocated to one user, providing full control over hardware, operating system, and configurations. Best for large businesses, high-traffic websites, or applications requiring maximum performance, security, and customization, such as enterprise-level e-commerce platforms or gaming servers.
   4. Cloud Hosting: A hosting solution that uses a network of virtual servers hosted in the cloud, allowing for scalability, redundancy, and resource allocation based on demand. Best for websites or applications with fluctuating traffic, startups needing flexibility, or businesses prioritizing uptime and scalability, such as SaaS platforms or media-heavy sites.
3. Purchase & Setup Hosting: Following the selection of the preferred plan, you’ll be prompted to pay. Once payment is confirmed, you’ll be provided the details and instructions on setting up your hosting account.

This process can be overwhelming for business owners. If you need consultation/help with setting up your domain and hosting, reach out to our team of experienced developers at Krestel Digital.

In summary, the preparation phase of a business website design in Nigeria would include: collating the website requirements, registering the domain name and hosting, and engaging a professional team to design your business website in Nigeria. Once these are in place, you’ll then move to the next phase of the project.

Phase 2: Design & Develop Your Business Website

This is the actual design and development of the website; the tasks here would mostly be the responsibility of the design and development team. The design and development phase consists of 4 steps. We’ll briefly run through each item:

1. DISCOVERY: The Discovery Phase is very important for a successful web development project. At this phase, you and all other stakeholders meet with the design and development team to define and agree on the project scope, budget, timeline, functionality, etc. The overarching goal of this phase is to ensure your team and the design and development teams align on all the project terms.
2. DESIGN : The design phase commences after the discovery phase; the website UI/UX is designed in this phase. Wireframes and mockups are designed and presented to the business owner/project owner during this phase for approval and feedback.
   Only after these designs are approved does development start because design takes less time than development, and changes are easier to effect.
3. DEVELOPMENT:  The development immediately follows the approved designs. The design is turned into a fully functional website either via hard coding or a preselected CMS like WordPress. Note that the decision between code or CMS should have already been made at the discovery phase.
4. TESTING : Website testing is done after final approval of the website and before it is set to go live. Testing is an essential part of the website design and should not be overlooked. During this phase, the website is thoroughly tested across various devices and browsers for: site usability, security, performance, and functionality. The goal of website testing for Nigerian business websites is to catch problems and fix them before launch, ensuring every aspect of the website works as it should.
5. LAUNCH: This is the final stage of the website design and development phase—the fully functional website is now made available to the general public after a final review. A successful launch is a seamless transition from the development environment to production.

To recap, the website design and development phase is next after the planning phase and involves discovery, design, development, testing, and website launch. We briefly summarized the different design and development phases so you have a basic understanding of what’s happening at each phase. For a more in-depth explanation, read our post on “How Long Does It Take to Design a Website in Nigeria.”

PHASE 3: Website Maintenance

Contrary to popular opinion, a website design project doesn’t end after the website launch. A plan has to be put in place for regularly scheduled maintenance. A website that isn’t properly maintained eventually becomes slow, antiquated, and susceptible to online attacks. This regular maintenance should include:

Regular Updates

Software, plugins, and themes, especially for websites built with CMS like WordPress, are very important. Not regularly updating plugins and themes can lead to security risks, like in 2024 when hackers compromised the Contact Form 7 Multi-Step Addon and four other popular plugins, giving hackers access to millions of websites that use these plugins.
It’s also important to update your website content, like team members, legal pages, addresses, contacts, etc., ensuring the data on the website is accurate and up to date.

Performance Monitoring

Website maintenance would also include actively monitoring important metrics like speed, uptime, and user engagement using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, Google Analytics 4, GTMetrix, etc. The goal of monitoring these metrics is to catch and fix issues while they’re still developing, before they become full-blown and grind the entire website to a halt.

Backup

Backups are extremely important and should not be overlooked. As it’s popularly said in Nigeria, “Half bread is better than none”—having a recent website backup is better than none. It’s much better to have a backup and not need it than to need a backup and not have one. We advise monthly backups for smaller business websites that don’t change regularly and weekly backups for larger sites like e-commerce websites. You should also regularly download the backup to a local hard drive offline, not leave it only on the host.

 PS: Read our guide on “Website Maintenance Checklist for Nigerian Websites” for a comprehensive guide on how to maintain your business website. We outlined maintenance tasks that should be completed weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually.

Conclusion

In this post, we outlined the three phases required to create a business website in Nigeria, namely: Preparation Phase, Design and Development Phase, and Maintenance Phase. We also stated best practices and things to avoid to prevent scope creep.

Now that you know how to create a business website and also the importance of having a professional website design agency design your business website—if you’re ready to start your website design process, contact us at Krestel Digital. Business website design is serious business; your website can be the determining factor if you get or lose a client.

Our expert website design and development team understands how serious a business website is and is adequately skilled to deliver the website your business needs and deserves. Contact us today.