Having a website is essential in today’s culture whether you’re a small business owner, blogger, or aspiring entrepreneur. However, diving headfirst into the realm of site building might be a little intimidating.
Fortunately, we’ve got you covered with a thorough checklist of things to complete before building a website yourself or hiring a specialist to do it for you.
Use the information in this post as a guide to follow as you get ready to launch your new website.
5 Easy Steps
A solid website strategy will assist you in organizing your efforts, gathering the resources you require, and beginning with an overview of your goals and a defined route for accomplishing them.
Listed below are the stages that can help you as you plan a website.
- Identify goals for your website
- Register a domain (and hosting)
- Produce content for the primary pages of your website
- Produce and gather design components
- Select a website creator
Keep reading this website plan outline, it can aid in the speedy, simple, and effective launch of your website.
1. Identify Goals for Your Website
Knowing why you are developing a website is important before you begin.
- What is the main goal you are pursuing?
- What do you hope your website will achieve for your business?
- Are you only providing information, or are you also selling things?
- Do you want to boost leads with your website?
- Is it your intention to use your website to increase year-end profits?
It’s essential to always start from the beginning: with the goal of your website. Knowing the responses to these questions will help you develop a strategy that is strategically linked to your company objectives.
Start by Considering Your Website’s Underlying Purpose
The reason you want to develop a website is because of its purpose. You believe a website can help you for this really clear reason. You could believe that the goal is to:
- Attract visitors and expand your audience
- Promote your products or services
- Disclose your expertise
- Promote your business
- Write entertaining content
Although they are great reasons for having a website, they won’t necessarily assist you in accomplishing any particular goal, thus you must transform the intention into a specific objective.
Turn Your Purpose Into a Concrete Goal
The purpose is the actual, measurable reason you need a website. It is what you hope will occur from having a website. Start with the objective that looks evident and keep asking “why” until you reach the true purpose to uncover your precise goal.
Choose The Elements That Your Website Needs in Order to Reach Your Goal
Understanding the website’s goal allows you to begin building a strategy that will lead to that conversion.
For instance, suppose you want to:
- Market an eBook to your audience by funneling readers to your eBook product pages and providing a purchasing option.
- Build your authority and secure speaking engagements by emphasizing your knowledge of the subject in blog entries that direct readers to your contact page.
- Increase the number of people who subscribe to your newsletter by adding opt-in forms to your website and producing intriguing and compelling lead magnets.
Break down your goal and decide which website components (such as opt-in forms, landing pages, etc.) are required to achieve it. Additionally, create a funnel on your website that directs visitors to the action you wish them to perform.
2. Secure a Domain Name (and Hosting)
Both the custom phrase that appears before the “dot” and the domain extension should be taken into account when selecting a domain. The domain extension is bold in these instances.
- YourChosenName.com
.com,.net,.info,.co, and.org are the most popular domain extensions. Many websites use them since they were the first domain extensions ever created. Because they are the most identifiable, they are also in high demand.
However, you may now register hundreds of brand-new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) domain extensions. Today, you may select domain extensions that are very related to your brand, like:
- YourChosenName.guru
- YourChosenName.nyc
- YourChosenName.photography
- YourChosenName.marketing
- YourChosenName.consulting
You must come up with a branded term that goes before the “dot” while selecting a domain name for your website. In addition to that, you’ll need to select a domain extension from the options currently available.
3. Create Content for Your Core Website Pages
Your text material is the next thing to prepare. For a typical website, you should have material prepared for the home, about, product/service, testimonial/review, and contact pages. You should also have at least one blog post prepared if you intend to have a blog on your website.
You can read more about how to prepare content for your core pages here.
4. Create and Collect Design Elements
Next, create and collect design elements to fill your website.
The visual representations of your company are the thing that makes up your visual brand. It is the design components that make it easier for clients to recognize and remember you.
These design components assist the brand’s individuality and personality:
- Colors
- Fonts and typography
- Logos
- Images and photos (stock photos, product photos, team and staff photos)
If you’re unsure of what this entails, get ideas by visiting competitors’ websites to get inspiration.
5. Pick a Website Builder
You’re equipped to choose which website builder would work best for your project at this stage of website planning. You have four alternatives when it comes to constructing your website. One can:
- Use a simple DIY website builder, such as Squarespace.
- Utilize a more complex DIY content management system, such as WordPress, which calls for a little bit more technical expertise.
- Instead of choosing a pre-made template, write custom code from scratch.
- Employ an experienced web designer to handle everything for you.
Examine more closely which kind of website platform will best meet your objectives once you have all the details of your business organized and a domain in your possession.
Asking yourself these questions can help you determine what you need from your website.
- Do you desire to blog?
- Would you like to gather visitor data?
- Are you interested in selling goods or services?
- Would you take credit cards as payment?
- Would you make appointments or use a calendar?
- Do you need to track shipment and inventory?
- Do you need complete access to the website’s source code?
- Will you use a professional?
- Will you be doing all the designing yourself?
- What is your project budget?
Put Your Website Plan Template Into Action
You now have everything you need to start planning and building a website.
All that is left to do at this point is execute your strategy. Take the following steps to launch your website and bring your business, idea, or project to life!
