How to Create a Website in Kenya: Do It Yourself or Hire Someone?
You can build a basic site yourself in a weekend, or have one built for you. Here's what you need either way (domain, hosting, content), the honest pros and cons of DIY, and when hiring pays for itself.
Creating a website for your business in Kenya comes down to four things: a domain name, hosting, the content (words and photos), and the site itself. Whether you build it yourself or hire someone, get the first three right and the website follows.
What do I need to create a website for my business?
- A domain in your business's name, ideally .co.ke for a Kenyan business
- Hosting, or a website builder that includes it
- Your content: what you sell, prices or price ranges, location, opening hours, phone and WhatsApp
- Real photos of your work, team and premises. Stock photos make you look like everyone else
- A Google Business Profile, so the site and your map listing support each other
Doing it yourself
Website builders like Wix, WordPress and Google Sites let you drag and drop a simple site. It costs little and you learn a lot. The catches: it takes longer than you expect, most templates are slow on Kenyan mobile data, and DIY sites often miss the technical basics Google needs (page titles, descriptions, speed and structured data). That's why many look fine but never show up in search.
Hiring someone
A professional build should give you a fast, mobile-first site that ranks, with you owning the domain and logins. Our express sites (one to three pages) start from KSh 15,000, landing pages from KSh 25,000, and full business websites from KSh 40,000. Before you hire anyone, read our guide on choosing a web developer, which covers the questions that expose bad ones.
Whichever route you take
- Put your WhatsApp number on every page, because that's how Kenyans contact businesses
- Write the words people actually search, like 'salon in Nakuru', not just 'Welcome to our website'
- Test the site on a cheap Android phone with mobile data
- Submit it to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools so it gets indexed
Antony Mungai
Founder, Steff Cloud — building websites, systems and automation for Kenyan businesses from Nakuru.