1. Website purpose
What will be the goal of your website? What kind of product or service do you plan to sell?
Deciding that will give you the answers on what kind of website do you need, what domain name and hosting you should take. Some examples of website types are landing page (used to sell one service or product), classical website (used to represent some products or services), webshop (a place where you can directly buy products/services), blog (articles about products/services which can be separate or part of some website and used as an additional marketing tool).
2. Domain name and extension
In this example: „company.com“, a „company“ is your business name or the brand name and „.com“ is a domain extension. Sometimes you will see „www“ in front of the domain name. It stands for „World Wide Web“. It isn’t really important if it stands in front of your domain name or not. Your web designer will set it up according to your wishes.
When choosing the domain name, the research shows that it is better to use shorter words and fewer words in general. It is better not to divide words using the dash. Also, it is best to use a „.com“ domain extension because it can perform better in Google search results if you plan to spread your business across the globe.
Depending on a country or a region you live in, it might be better to use a local domain. Why? Well, if you intend to do your business only in your country, you should use your country’s local domain because it will perform better for that country. It is same for the region (like EU).
Recently there are many different domain extensions available to buy. This wide selection resulted from the high demand because most of the quality domains are already taken, and the number of websites is increasing. In our opinion, a website that has some new domain extension like „.health“ can be successful over time, but only if it is a successful brand. Also, new domain extensions are more expensive. To conclude, if you plan to do your business locally see if you can get a local domain extension free of charge. Alternatively, you might have to get creative with your brand name to get the domain you want.
3. Hosting
Your website has to be hosted somewhere. That means to put the website on some server. When choosing a hosting company, it is best to choose some local company (from your own country). The biggest advantage is because they usually can be accessed by phone. There are many hosting companies which offer different hosting packages.
Some hosting companies have very affordable hosting packages prices, but put too many websites on one server, which can result in slow loading of your website. We recommend that you consult your webmaster’s opinion when choosing the hosting company and the right hosting package size for your project.
4. Website content
Having your business’ goal in mind, you can develop the website’s structure. You can start with your main menu and develop and ramify its structure from there. Each page (including the homepage) should preferably have lots of quality content. Such pages will have a better position in Google search results. Your homepage content should have links to the other pages, and all the pages should be interlinked as much as possible.
You are the best person to build that content, but you can always hire a professional (a specialized content writer) to write it for you.
5. Website design / template
When you have your content in place, it is easy to decide how the website should look. There are several options when it comes to design. One option is to use some online service to build it and use some of its premade templates. The drawback of this is that, although your web will be cheaper in the beginning (because you build it yourself), you have to pay a higher price in the end because of the higher monthly fee.
Other two options include hiring a web designer/developer. A more affordable option is to buy some premade template and to change it (to any extent) according to your needs. Last option would be to let the designer make a fully custom design that suits your needs. During the design process, the designer will think of every little detail, so your website will easily meet visitor needs and lead them where you want.
6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is a great extension of quality website content. For SEO to do its work, lots of guidelines have to be implemented. Some of the basic ones include adding titles and descriptions to every page, titles to images and building an internal and external link network. Google (and other search engines) have different search algorithms which change over time. SEO experts’ task is to try to implement as many guidelines possible using the available website content.
7. Internet marketing
Although your website is looking and performing nicely, sometimes you have to advertize it to drive more visitors your way. The most popular ways of digital advertising are Google, Facebook and Youtube ads. Depending on your website’s goal and your business’ social profiles, you will choose between those options or maybe choose all three.
8. Google Analytics
To have a detailed insight about your website visitors, you should install Google Analytics code to your website. You can track where your website visitors come from, which pages interest them the most, how long do they visit your website and much, much more. Of course, you can see which of your online campaigns performs better so you can tweak them accordingly to reach your goal.
If you are new to all this, don’t feel intimidated. Take one step at the time, plan and get it done! You can always ask us for help in any part of the process.
