[cmsmasters_dropcap shortcode_id=”mp7b5mskm8″ type=”type1″]E[/cmsmasters_dropcap]ven the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.
Before building a website, it’s important to carefully consider your goals and objectives. Here are some key questions to ask yourself:
What is the purpose of the website? Do you want to sell products, provide information, or generate leads?
Who is the target audience for the website? What are their interests, needs, and behaviors?
What content will be included on the website? Will you be creating original content or aggregating content from other sources?
What features and functionality do you want the website to have? Do you need an e-commerce platform, a blog, a forum, or other specific features?
How will you drive traffic to the website? What marketing and promotion strategies will you use?
How will you measure the success of the website? What metrics will you use to track progress and make improvements?
Answering these questions will help you develop a clear vision for your website and ensure that it is well-suited to meet the needs of your target audience.
A website is becoming a necessity rather than an asset for businesses and personal creators. After all, it helps increase visibility and credibility and acts as an online storefront to make it easier to connect with prospects and buyers. However, your should build your website in the right way for it to fulfil its potential.
If you are thinking of creating a website as well, here are some questions you need to ask yourself to take yourself in the right direction:
What is the Purpose of My Website?
There can be various reasons to build a website. Some include:
- To increase sales.
- To make your marketing more effective.
- To provide information to the people.
- To improve your organization’s credibility.
- To offer a specific service.
The first thing you need to ask yourself is why exactly you are building your website. Only after having a clear answer to it will you be able to create one that can help you reach your goals.
What Features Do I Need on My Website?
Many people make the mistake of allowing the web developer to have complete authority over the site’s features. While it seems a great idea to save effort and time by giving the work to a professional, it may result in your website missing essential features which you would definitely include if you were in charge.
Before building a website, research similar websites to see their features. You can also come up with your own ideas and make a list of all of them. Then, you should discuss what other features could be added with your developer.
What are the Things I Need to Pay for?
You need a clear understanding of the things that you need to pay for. If not, these ‘hidden costs’ will take a toll on your budget plans.
Here are something that you should plan on your budget:
The Domain Name
It is the phrase that users type on their browser to access your website. For example, facebook.com is a domain name.
Domain names are registered for a specific amount of time. If no one else has taken the domain name that you want, it costs about $10 – $15 a year to reserve one. If someone else has already bought the domain name, you can either look for a new domain name or negotiate the price with the owner.
Hosting
A host is a server computer that stores the content for your site. There are many types of hosting which affect the price, speed, and storage capacities of your website:
Shared Hosting: Various websites are stored together on a single server.
Virtual Private Storage: A single server is divided into several small units. Your website is stored in one of those units.
Dedicated Hosting: Your website content is stored in a single server, which is meant only for you.
Cloud Hosting: Your content is stored on the cloud.
SSL Certificate
Notice how browsers show a ‘Not Secure’ alert on some websites in the domain name bar? If you look closely, those websites have an ‘HTTP’ instead of an ‘HTTPS.’
You need to buy an SSL Certificate for HTTPS protection. It encrypts the information that users enter on your website. This keeps the data safe from hackers.
For example, say you run an ecommerce store. When a buyer enters their credit card information, the SSL Certificate converts that information into a code before allowing the data to travel to your website server. Hence, even if a hacker tries to steal that information on the way, they will only get the code and not the actual data.
There are free SSL certificates as well, but they only suit smaller personal sites. You need to buy a good SSL certificate, especially if your website collects sensitive or personal information.
Do I Actually Need to Hire a Developer?
While CMS such as WordPress and visual website builders such as Wix streamline web development, it may still be difficult to create the entire website without prior knowledge or experience. Especially if you are building a website for a business, it is better to consult a professional web developer.
Hiring a web developer will make more money, but they will be able to build a website exactly as you want. Furthermore, they will take care of the important stuff that you may miss, for example, website loading speed.
However, if it is a small project and you have time, you can complete some simple courses, and you should be good to go.
What Framework Should My Website Use?
Instead of a CMS, using a language such as HTML, .NET, Laravel, or PHP can help to fully customize a website. In addition, with limited resources, websites built on CMS tend to be slower when you add more pages.
Building your website in an existing CMS is easy and affordable. You can also do it yourself. However, with an actual development language, you will be able to customize both the front-end (the design) and the back-end (the functionalities) of your website exactly as you want. You will also have the originality, as the code has been written specifically for your site.
Tip: If you have a limited budget, use a CMS, and move to a programming language as you grow.
How Will Drive in Visitors to Your Website?
You have to promote your website before being able to promote with it. You get better results keeping the digital marketing channels in your mind while building the site.
For example, say you plan to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Then, while building the website, you will have to work on the SEO ranking factors, which include page speed, interactivity, engaging content, etc.
If you plan to use YouTube or Social Media Marketing to drive visitors, you will have to design your landing pages accordingly. Building contact forms with email is essential if you plan to leverage email marketing.
As we are talking about marketing, don’t forget to reflect your brand with the design. This includes consistent tune across all content, consistent colours, attractive logo, etc.
