Build a Free Website for Small Business with AI

Are you interested in creating a free website for small business? What if I told you that you could have a website for free with no monthly hosting costs? Sounds intriguing, right? Follow along to use GPT-4 or Claude3.5 to create a modern website, which you can test using simple tools like Notepad and a web browser. With Netlify’s generous free plan, you won’t have to pay anything until you start receiving hundreds of visitors each month.

Creating a website can seem like a daunting task, especially if you don’t have a technical background. However, with the help of ChatGPT, you can build a simple, yet effective, website that is optimized for SEO, accessibility, performance, and responsiveness. This step-by-step guide will walk you through the process of developing a free website for small business and deploying it on Netlify.

Importance of Accessibility, SEO, and Performance

Accessibility

Ensuring your website is accessible means that everyone, including people with disabilities, can use it. This not only broadens your audience but is also a legal requirement in many places. Features like keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and ARIA labels help make your site inclusive.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is crucial for making your website visible in search engine results. Proper use of meta tags, alt text for images, and keyword-rich content helps search engines understand your site’s content, improving its ranking and driving more traffic to your site.

Performance

A fast-loading website is essential for a good user experience. Slow websites can frustrate users and lead to higher bounce rates. Optimizing your site’s performance through minified CSS, optimized images, and efficient coding ensures quick load times and better engagement.

Responsive Design

With users accessing websites from a variety of devices, it’s important that your website looks good on all screen sizes. Responsive design ensures your site adjusts its layout and elements to provide an optimal viewing experience on desktops, tablets, and mobile phones.

Generating a Free Website for small business with AI

To help you get started, here is a command you can use with GPT-4 or Claude 3.5 to generate a full website. This website includes a modern layout, responsive design, branding, CSS animations, and all necessary optimizations.

Command to ChatGPT:

Below command has an example business description and brand colors. Read through and edit as necessary.

Generate a 1-page responsive website with the following features: 
- Modern layout with header, footer, and navigation menu.  
- Responsive design using CSS media queries.
- CSS animations for a visually appealing experience. 
- SEO optimized with meta tags, alt text for images, and structured headings. 
- Accessible with ARIA labels and keyboard navigation support. 
- Fast load times with minified CSS and optimized images. 
- Branding elements including a logo and consistent color scheme. 
- Include comments in the code to explain each section and step. 
- The code should be ready to copy and paste into a text editor and saved as `index.html`. 
- Add a CSS file for styling and responsiveness. 
- Include placeholders for brand colors and specific services. 
- Optimize for local SEO and rich text results.


Give the website a modern look with bento grid and strong headline sending a clear message to user. 
Add sections for 
- services
- pictures of our recent work 
- testimonials 
- ‘why choose us’ showcasing our strengths.

Website should be engaging with cues like random lines to encourage user to scroll. 
Use icons as svg where suitable to enhance visual appeal. 

I will save images as 
- logo.png, 
- hero-section.png, 
- RecentWork1.png, 
- RecentWork2.png ….  at least 5 recent works.

Adjust layout and add the content as well based on my business description below.

- We at “Bright Clean Services” specialize in residential, commercial, and move-in/move-out cleaning, ensuring every space is spotless and refreshed.

- Services Offered:
— - Residential Cleaning: Regular and deep cleaning of homes, including kitchens, bathrooms, living areas, and bedrooms.

— - Commercial Cleaning: Office and workspace cleaning to maintain a professional and hygienic environment.

- - Move-In/Move-Out Cleaning: Thorough cleaning to make properties ready for new occupants or to secure your deposit.

- Pricing Packages:

- - Basic Package: Starting at $75 - Includes general cleaning of key areas.

- - Standard Package: Starting at $125 - Comprehensive cleaning with added attention to detail.

- - Premium Package: Starting at $200 - Deep cleaning, including appliances, windows, and additional services.

- My Call to action on my website is users giving me a call at +1 (289)-356-3784 or email at [email protected] to book the service. 
- Include my business address of 123 Any St, New City, ON, Canada. 
- Add  more content and optimize for relevant keywords with frequent call to action. 
- My brand color is yellow. Link to my social profiles are as below, use svg icons for social media.

- - Facebook page link here

— - instagram page link here

If this does not get you the desired result, try asking to generate in small chunks so you can paste them one below the other. For example, ask to generate a header, followed by hero-section with call to action. Continue your prompts for recent work, testimonials and footer section.

Organizing Your Website Files

Create a main project folder called public.Inside the public folder, create subfolders for images, CSS, and JavaScript if needed:

public/

├── index.html

├── images/

├── css/

└── js/

Saving and Viewing the Website on browser

1. LocallyOpen your text editor and paste the generated code for each page.
2. Save the files as index.html, about.html, services.html, and contact.html inside the public folder.
3. Place any images you want to use in the images folder. 4. Open each HTML file in a web browser to view your website.

Deploying the Website on Netlify

Deploying your website on Netlify is straightforward with their drag-and-drop feature. Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to Netlify.
2. Sign up for an account if you don’t have one.Click on the “Sites” tab and then “Add new site”.
3. Select the “Deploy manually” option.Drag and drop the public folder onto the upload area.
4. Netlify will automatically deploy your site and provide you with a live URL.

Test your website

To verify your website is optimized for responsiveness, SEO, performance, and accessibility, you can use Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool provides a comprehensive analysis of your website’s performance, highlighting areas for improvement. Simply go to Google PageSpeed Insights, enter your website URL, and review the detailed reports. These reports will help you understand how well your site performs on different devices, its loading speed, and its accessibility for all users, ensuring you deliver the best experience possible.

Customizing Your Website

Brand Colors

To customize the brand colors, update the –primary-color and –secondary-color in the CSS part of your HTML files. Replace the placeholder values with your brand’s colors.

Modifying Text

To change the text on your website, open your HTML files in a text editor like Notepad. Look for the tags like p, h1, h2, h3 or span.

These tags surround the text content of your web pages. Simply replace the text between these tags with your own content. For example:

<p>Welcome to our website!</p> <!-- Change this text to your own welcome message -->

<h1>Our Services</h1> <!-- Modify this heading to reflect your services -->

<h2>Service One</h2> <!-- Update this subheading with a specific service →

<h3>Contact Us</h3> <!-- Change this subheading to fit your contact information →

<span>Some additional information here.</span> <!-- Replace this text with relevant details -->

Updating Images

To change the images on your website, look for the <img> tags in your HTML files. These tags include a src attribute, which specifies the path to the image file. Replace the current file path with the path to your desired image. For example:

<img src="images/old-image.jpg" alt="Description of image"> <!-- Update the file path -->

If your new image is named new-image.jpg and is stored in the same images folder, change the tag to:

This way, you can easily customize the content of your website without any technical expertise.

Conclusion

By following this guide, you have successfully created and deployed a simple, responsive free website for small business optimized for SEO, accessibility, and performance. Feel free to customize it further and share your new website with the world! This approach ensures your website is modern, visually appealing, and user-friendly on any device. Feel free to drop us a line if you are stuck at any step. We are Canada’s leading web development agency. We want every small business to excel and providing a free static website development service is a step towards enabling your digital growth.