Are you considering building a website for your business but have no clue on where to start or how websites work? Below is a step-by-step guide on what you need to start a website.
1. Have an idea and a target
Before building a website, it is important to have an idea on what kind of website you want to build. Is it an online directory, a question and answer forum, ecommerce, employee management system or just one to represent your company and its products or services?
Once you know the purpose for which you want to create a website, then decide on what features or ability that website should have. In order words know exactly what your website should be able to do or communicate.
2. Register a domain name
A domain name or URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a unique web address that allows visitors to find your website or resource on the internet. An example is “koxydesign.com”. If you type koxydesign.com on your browser, then you will locate our website. Note that a domain name is different from a website. A domain name is just an address while a website is something you will need to build. The website you build will be located by customers or visitors using your domain name. You can have a domain name without a website but you cannot have a website without a domain name.
Your domain name should be similar to that of your business as much as possible so that visitors or customers can easily find you. Your domain name can also be used for emails once you get a web hosting for example info@koxydesign.com. This is more professional than using free services such as Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo.
A domain name is not free. You will need to buy one. Also, once you buy it you will need to renew it every year. Failing to renewing your domain name can put your business at risk of cyber attacks. Besides, failing to renew it means someone else can buy it and use it as an address to another website. One possible implication is that all the traffic that used to come to your website will now go but to theirs.
3. Get a web hosting
A web hosting is an internet hosting service which allows the website you have build to be available on the internet. A web host is a company that own web servers. It then allocates space on its web server for a website to store its files or content so that it can be viewed online. The website wherever it is hosted, will be located by visitors or customers using your web address which is your domain name.
Your web host will offer different types of hosting plans. Whichever one you choose will depend on your website requirements or needs. Web hosting fees are paid on a monthly basis and will depend on the type of plan you choose. Although hosting fees are paid monthly, you can also choose to pay yearly. This option is much more convenient.
Most companies that provide web hosting also allows for domain registration. so you can do both at the same company. However, you can still buy a domain with one company and host your website with another company.
4. Put together your website content
Think about carefully on what kind of information, task or transaction you want to be made available on your website. Then structure the site into different pages or sections in a way that will be appealing to your customers. Make sure the content is presented in a way that your visitors can fully understand your product and/or services. Write about what they might want to know and not what you want them to know or believe. Also make sure your visitors can easily navigate your website and find the information they need.
Obviously, not everyone is good at writing content or have the time to do so. You can consider hiring the service of a professional to assist you. Content writing is one of our core service at Koxydesign. Contact us for more info. We write content that help make your site stand out from the competition.
5. Design your website
There are 3 options you can use to build yourself a website:
- Hire a professional or an experienced web developer to do it for you.
- You can build it yourself using a website builder and a template. Easy to use and no coding skills require
- You can learn website from scratch and build your own
Each of these options comes with its own advantage or disadvantage.
If you have no experience in web development, then learning and building a website from scratch just because you need a website is not necessary. It is really a waste of time. Better use a website builder or hire a professional web developer.
Furthermore, using a website builder has the advantage that it is cheap, gets job done quickly, easy to use and requires no coding or designer skills. But such builders use templates. These templates are not easy to customized, most of the designs look cheap, not optimized for search engine, not mobile friend meaning poor user experience, usually load slowly and comes with limited pages and limited features.
- 48% of people cited a website’s design as the number one factor in deciding the credibility of a business
- 94% of people cited web design as the reason they mistrusted or rejected a website
Hiring a professional web developer therefore is your best option. With a web developer you get a unique look for your business just as you want with all your desired features. Your websites will also be mobile friendly and optimized for search engine.
A website needs to be updated regularly. Either for security purposes, to make sure everything is still working proper or to make sure information present is up to date.
Checkout our web design packages. Very cheap and affordable.
6. Digital marketing strategy
Just having a website is not enough. It is very likely that millions of people are already doing the same thing like yourself. Besides, you are just the new kid on the block. How will they find your website amongst millions of similar websites like yourself that have been existing long ago. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to sell your products or services if no one is able to find you.
There are several ways you can go about this including, social media marketing, paid marketing, affiliate marketing, content marketing, email marketing or search engine optimization.
To compete and be at the top of search engine and to draw more traffic to your website, you will need search engine optimization (SEO).
7. Google analytics
This is a free tool offered by Google to help you track and report website traffic. Immediately after launching your website, you should install Google analytics as it will give you valuable insight into how your website is doing.
Information provided by Google analytics include: number of visitors visiting your site, type of visitors (new or returning), what devices does your visitors use the most, what content does your visitors dislike or spend more time on, which country or countries is the majority of your audience etc.
This can really help as to what is working and what is not working on your website. With such valuable information, you can strategize and do the necessary changes.
Read More: Reasons Why You Need a Website For Your Business