Create a business website

An SSL certificate serves as proof of a website’s identity and also enables the browser and server to establish an encrypted connection. All information transmitted by your website is encrypted, which protects it from third-party access. This is important, for example, for contact forms integrated on your website that enable customers to interact with your company.

An SSL certificate is the industry standard

Regardless of a company’s size and the range of products and services on its website, appropriate encryption is industry standard. It ensures data security and increases customer trust, and is very important for a company’s reputation. Every company website should therefore have a valid SSL certificate. If no certificate is available, some web browsers even issue a security warning. A missing SSL certificate can also have a negative effect on search engine rankings, which is definitely something no business wants.

Modern encryption

SSL stands for "Secure Sockets Layer", which is a protocol for establishing authenticated and encrypted links between networked computers. The term "SSL certificate" is now synonymous when it comes to certifying modern encryption protocols. This is still the case even though the TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificate, a newer and more secure standard, has largely replaced its predecessor, SSL. The term "SSL certificate" may still be used even though it is actually referring to a TLS encryption.

The abbreviation ROPO stands for "Research online, purchase offline", referring to the phenomenon whereby consumers first obtain information online about a product, but only decide to purchase it in a shop where they can have a proper look at it and actually touch it.

Online presence

Creating a business website is a great way to draw attention to what your company is offering and encourage customers to buy the products or use the services. It is irrelevant whether the purchase is made online or offline. Both distribution channels are interlocked and can complement each other.

Increase sales

A well-thought-out and properly optimised online shop also greatly benefits your brick and mortar shop. In order to make the most out of these selling opportunities, businesses with sales intentions should create a business website using a practical website construction kit, or have one created for them.

As well as MyWebsite Now Plus, you can use WordPress to make a website for your business, display your company’s goods in several languages, access customer reviews and online appointment planners via business web apps, and conveniently manage reservations while out and about.

Yes. There are helpful tools that you can use for local search engine optimisation. This will increase your reach and make it easier for you to be found online as well as locally. These include online registers or web portals where you enter your company’s location and contact details. In most cases, you can also define local keywords and, if necessary, even upload pictures and videos. These registers and portals are like online business directories, which many users access either directly or indirectly (for example, via search engine results).

Optimisation measures like these are an important building block for local SEO. In this way, you are actively increasing your website’s ability to rank better, at best, in local search queries on Google and other important web portals. Your localised content will then be listed higher in the search results and can be found more easily by interested parties and (potential) customers when their search queries correspond to what your business is providing. Moreover, due to taking advantage of these registers, your company location and relevant information can also be found in numerous apps and navigation systems that access these location-based data sources. Potential customers have everything they need to know about your company on their screens. And in the best-case scenario - more customers means more sales.

Of course, you can always create profiles manually on dozens of relevant portals, although it does take a lot of time and effort to create each profile, enter the information, and keep checking it to make sure it is always up-to-date. In addition to this, you may have to wait a while for your entries to be activated.

Would you like to benefit from these web portals for local SEO without spending a lot of time setting them up? Do you want to save yourself the time of having to maintain multiple accounts? You can do this with List Local from IONOS. The advantage of this highly effective tool is that with List Local, you can conveniently and efficiently manage your data via a single user account, which is connected to all the other platforms where your company is listed. This saves you having to interact with each individual online register or web portal, and yet you still benefit fully from all the possibilities for your local search engine optimisation. Would you like to change, update, or add new information? Thanks to List Local, this can be done with just a few clicks. All changes are directly and automatically applied to all linked portals.

Another advantage: with List Local, you not only keep your information up-to-date and protect it from being manipulated in any way, but the tool also makes customer support much easier. Thanks to a clearly arranged inbox, you have a central overview of new customer reviews, comments, and photo uploads for your company in all linked portals. If necessary, you can react more quickly and respond to inquiries and customer feedback.