Your website is the face of your brand online. There’s a lot of planning that goes into creating this space. It’s where potential customers come to find out who you are and what you do.
When done correctly, your website will be a lead-generating machine, turning web traffic into new customers.
Before you begin, it’s important to understand the following:
- What is your website’s purpose?
- Who will be your audience?
- What kind of content will get you found in a Google search?
My helpful tips will help you get started on creating a successful website for your business.
What is your budget?
As with any investment for your business, you need to know your budget before starting a website. How much you can afford will determine the size of the first phase of your website. Your budget will also determine the quality of your site.
What is the goal of your Website?
Every website has a purpose. It’s important to know what the point is of your website.
- What is your website being designed to do?
- What would you like to achieve with your new website?
Will your domain name be your brand name?
Your website requires what is called a domain name (ie. abuzzcreative.com). Most of us use our business name.
If your business name is not available as a domain name, you will need to brainstorm a different domain name and check its availability.
Do you have a color scheme?
You will need to know which colors you plan on using for your website. Your brand may already have an established color palette of Pantone colors so you should use those as your color scheme.
If you decide to test all new colors for your website, make sure they make a positive impact on your users.
Have you written content for each page?
As the owner of your business, you will have the best understanding of what your website’s content should be. An outline will help build a site that flows easily for your visitors. Your outline will be used for your website navigation menu.
Create a simple outline for your website:
- Web pages you will need
- Categories for products
- Calendars for events or promotions
- Contact and location pages
Once you have an outline, you can start writing text and thinking about images to be placed on each web page. Focus on usability so people can easily contact you, buy your products, subscribe to an email list, or just get around your web pages.
Will you be keeping a blog for news?
You don’t have to be a “blogger” to keep a blog! You can use a website blog for sharing news, your latest products, and updates or changes in your industry. Using the blog on your website is a great way to connect with people and to encourage them to visit your site often.
What will be your call to action?
A call to action is how people contact you and when.
- How do you want people to reach you – by email, phone, online chat?
- What hours will you available via your chosen communication methods?
Who will be updating your website?
Decide if you want to manage your website or if you want your web designer to do it for you.
Most web developers create websites with a content management system (CMS) like WordPress. This way you can update the content on your website whenever you need to.
You can also hire your web designer when needed and pay them an hourly fee to make updates.
Do you have a list of competitive keywords?
Your keywords are an important part of search engine optimization (SEO). You need to create a list of phrases and individual words that people will use in a search on Google.
Understanding the competitive keywords for your industry will put you in front of a more focused audience. Great keywords help Google show your website to their search customers, and to the right ones!
How will you market your new website?
Are you managing your social media channels often? Facebook and LinkedIn are great places to share links to your website. When you write a new blog post, you should share a link on your social channels.
Have you claimed your Google My Business profile? This is a great place to create posts once a week that link to your website or new blog post.
Conclusion
There’s a great deal of planning that goes into creating your most important marketing piece.
Remember – when done correctly, your website can generate lots of new leads which you can then turn into new customers!
