What does it take to start a website? If you’re considering building a website, but you’re new to it, it can be hard to know where to start. Without a clear list of steps to follow, you can feel intimidated when it’s time to get started.
In order to help you, we have a list that details step by step everything you need to create your website.
1. A goal
If you’re thinking of launching a website, chances are you’re already ahead of the game in this regard (most people don’t consider building a site without knowing what they want it for). However, before you go ahead, be very clear about what you want to achieve with it.
If you are starting a business in the service sector; the site must adequately communicate to the customer what the business offers and why they should hire it. If your business is focused on selling a product, your goal is to attract people to put it in their cart and buy it. Instead, if you have a blog dedicated to your love of spaghetti western movies; your goal can be as simple as attracting a few moviegoers who enjoy reading your posts.
Whatever your particular goal, the following steps will play an important role in helping you reach it, so it is essential that you have your goal clearly defined before proceeding.
2. A name
Choosing a name is a tricky step; It seems simple, but for many it ends up being one of the most complicated. It doesn’t involve a lot of tedious work, but it does require you to make a difficult creative decision, so it’s easy to get stuck at this step.
When choosing a name for your website, it’s not enough that it sounds good. Your brainstorming process will also involve, for example, finding an available domain for your site. Your site name doesn’t have to match the domain you register, but it will be much easier for a visitor to find it again if the names match, so it might be worth finding a genuine .com domain without resorting to anything.
This step will most likely be difficult for you, but don’t let it take forever. Set a deadline to choose your domain and stick to it. Having a name, even if it’s not your dream name, is better than no name or no website.
3. Web hosting
In general, you can register your domain and pay for your web hosting service in one go; since many hosting plans include at least one domain name as part of the package (and sometimes more). Choosing the right hosting plan can be overwhelming; but a little basic information about how different types of hosting differ should give you a pretty good idea of
If your project is in its infancy and your website will be small or will not generate a lot of traffic, a cheap shared plan can cover your needs for a few pesos a month.
4. Design
Every site you see on the internet has a basic design that someone had to create. When web design is useful and intuitive, the user can navigate a site without thinking twice about its layout. This is possible because someone took the time to design it in a way that would easily meet the needs of the visitor.
You have several options for designing your site. You can hire someone with experience in web design to design something unique and tailored to your needs. You can also use a website builder and design your site yourself using templates and intuitive design interfaces. Finally, you can learn web design and build your site from scratch. We warn you that this last option will not be easy if you do not have previous experience (and that it is also unnecessary when it is much easier to use a website builder). However, if you want to add web design to your skill set; building your first site is a good way to practice.
5. Content
Just like with web design, you probably don’t give much thought to all the work that goes into putting together the text on the sites you visit. Despite this, writing is a time-consuming and difficult task that you will have to face.
This is another step where it might be worth hiring a professional to help you out; especially if the purpose of your site is to sell a service or product. Copywriters who specialize in digital content. They know where to position text on a site and how to word it to get visitors to do what you want. If writing is not your forte; most likely, you will end up wasting your time and effort on a result that can never match the quality of the work of someone who really knows what they are doing.
If you decide to create the content of your site yourself; take some time to read about the best practices of digital copywriting. On sites like Copyblogger and Copyhackers you will find some tips to help you get started.
6. Digital marketing plan
You probably thought that creating your website was the hard part (and boy is it not easy). However, after launching your site you will soon realize how difficult it can be to get people to visit it. For that, you need digital marketing.
Consider which digital marketing tactic will work best for your site and come up with a plan that will help you promote your site to attract traffic. No one is going to buy your product or read your content if they can’t find your site. To reach the goal you set in step one, you’ll need to make the commitment to invest in marketing efforts that build an audience for you.
7. Google Analytics
Fortunately, one of the essential tools for every website owner is completely free. Installing Google Analytics is easy and should be one of the first things you do when you’re ready to launch your site. The tool gives you valuable demographic information and tells you, among other things, how many people visit your site, how they got there, and if they visited it more than once.
The information you get from Google Analytics will tell you if your marketing campaign is working; and which tactics are having the best results. You will also be able to find out about what type of visitors have the greatest possibility of carrying out actions; like buying a product or signing up for emails and which ones simply visit your site only to leave after a few seconds and never return. The tool will also tell you what changes to make to your site and marketing campaign to reach your goals faster.