Before you build a website, clarify what you want or need the website to accomplish.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

You want to build a personal, business, or organization website but have no idea where to begin. Doing it yourself can be daunting, frustrating, and confusing for someone new to venue, but can also be rewarding. It is also tedious, time-consuming, and never ending for experienced web designers — it does not get easier the more you know it gets harder, because you know what needs to be done to keep a site current, fresh, and interesting for visitors to find it and to come back.

There are a seven things you need to do to make sure your website is designed, hosted, and created properly to ensure it gets its proper place on the world wide web.

1. You need a Goal/Purpose/Idea for your website

You must have a solid goal/purpose/idea for a website before you create one. Before you go any further, clarify what you want or need the website to accomplish.

The main reason people have a website, or websites, is to share something with the world: Ideas, Products, Services, Stories, or Images. A business can let people know about their products and services, and even sell them online. An organization can inform people about their cause and services, and share information to benefit others. A person can have a site for their family, their ideas and views, or what ever they want to share with the world that visitors want to know or see.

A service-based business website should accurately communicate what you offer and why people should hire you. A product-based business is to get people to add those items to their shopping cart and check out. A blog site to share your deep abiding love of ____ is finding people who enjoy reading your posts.

Whatever the particular goal/purpose/idea you have for a website, the following steps play a role in helping you, which makes it important that you figure this step out before going any further.

2. A Name

Coming up with a name for a Band, Book Title, Paper Title, Child, Film, Product, Business, Song, or a Brand New Website can be one of the hardest things to do — it is going to be something that sticks with you forever or until you change it, but the digital world things do not go away easily or quickly. Unlike naming a story, film, paper, product or other things, coming up with a domain name for a website site should be one of the first steps to complete before moving forward.

Things to think about when choosing a Domain name for your website.

• At anytime in your research for a domain name you can check the availability of the domain name you are wanting by typing it into the url bar of a browser; if it comes up not found, it is a good sign that it is available.
NEVER go to a domain name registra to check your domain name. They store searches and if you do not buy it at that moment, it may not be there when you want it. Act fast.

• Keep it short, easy to type, and easy to remember, yet unique in nature!
If you are marketing yourself, ideally you will be able to use your first and last name (geralddavenport.com). of course if you have a common name, you may want to add your middle initial or full name as the domain name. Even if you are not marketing yourself, it is a good idea to register your name as a domain name now, in case you want to use it in the future. If you are marketing your business, you should see if your business name (yourbusiness.com) is available.

• Use keywords related to the goal of the website.
If possible, incorporate the service, product, or purpose of your business into the name of the domain.

• If possible, add the region, city, or area you want to service for your business into the domain name.

• Research the name for trademark, copyright, or usage issues — not always the case if it is available it is free to use, but first come first serve.

• Avoid sounding, looking, or being similar to a high profile domain, or a local competitor.

• Use the appropriate domain name extension.
Not everything needs to be a .com, but it is the default standard. Research to see if your goal for the website has an extension that will be beneficial to your business.

• If you can afford it, purchase the domain name with other common domain name extensions.
Also purchase domain names with misspellings and other derivations to protect your brand.

• Avoid Numbers and Hyphens in the domain name.

• If you are looking at going social, you may also want to check social sites for the existence of your domain name being used by someone else.

• Make it expandable.
You never know how your business might expand, so avoid names that box you in. For example, GutterSpecialists.com is nice, but what if you want to add roofing at a future date? Avoid life-stage-specific names like myhighschoolyears.com. (It is cool now, but hopefully you want be in high school all your life!)

• Proofread your domain name before moving forward.
Look real closely at it as a child would to make sure that it does not create any unusual words hiding in the combination of letters. such as Pen Island, Speed Of Art, Therapist In A Box, and others.

3. Web Hosting

Avoid using the same place you bought your domain name as your hosting service. After many, many years of experience and issues using the same location for both, it is best to have them separate from each other.

We covered the Pros and Cons of Free Website Building Services, but over paying for a service also needs to be avoided. It is hard to find a place that sincerely cares about you, your business, and your clients. Davenport Website Designs can help you with the purchase of your domain and hosting it as well.

4. A Design - Look - Theme

The design, look, or theme of your website has a major impact on your visitors. Is it congruent with the Goal/Purpose of the site. Does it have a easy-on-the-eye look? Can they navigate it easily?

Look at three to five sites you like to visit and figure out why. What do they have that you like that you want to incorporate into your site? And what you want to incorporate into your site, does it work with the Goal/Purpose of the website?

6. Content - The Data - The Info

This is the stuff that you want the visitor to read, watch, or buy. It needs to be well written, organized, and to the point. Remember we are living in a world where people want things quick and fast. I am impressed if you have read this far. You are a one-of-a-kind, inquisitive type, and go beyond the surface fluff that the drones of cattle read and are entertained about.

7. Building the Website

Behind every website you see on the web, someone, or a team, spent hours coming up with it and testing to make it easy to navigate and find what the visitor wants or needs, or what the owner of the site wants them to read or buy.

You can take the time to design your website yourself. It is not that difficult to make a basic website in HTML, but basic HTML is not enough in today's responsive, search engine savvy world. You could have a family member or a friend who says they dabble in it make it; however, unless they do it as a profession or have hours to spend keeping it up to date, SEO fresh, and insightful knowledge about current industry standards, your site is not going to actually do you any for you — you would be wasting your time and little money. If people cannot find it, it is like fishing without any bait on the hook.

As we have stated before A Website is Not a Pot of Boiling Water. It takes time, caring, and research to keep your site up in the organic rankings. You could hire an experienced website design company like Davenport Website Designs to handle every detail from design, creation, coding, hosting, SEO, Analytics, MArketing, and keep a watchful eye on it. it is not a mater of can you afford it, but can you afford not to do it?

Seven Things you need before you build a website