If you’re a small business owner, building a website can be an intimidating task – regardless of if you’re building it yourself, or working with a web designer. After all, there are so many options out there, it’s easy to get confused. But if you follow these simple steps and have a clear plan for your site in mind before you start building it, you’ll find that creating your site will be much easier than expected:
Step One: Have a clear website vision.
Before you get started, it’s important to do some soul-searching and make sure your website is going to accomplish the goals you set for yourself. This can be done by answering the following questions:
- Who are you targeting? Are they current customers or potential ones? If they’re already customers, what can your website do to help them become repeat purchasers?
- What business goals have you set for yourself and how will a new site achieve them? For example, if one goal involves increasing sales by 20%, then the design of your new site should reflect that goal (e.g., putting an emphasis on calls-to-action).
- What does success look like? Is it about traffic or leads generated from search engines/social media/email marketing campaigns? A strong understanding of this will help determine whether building a blog into your site is necessary (for example). Ultimately, there should be some sort of quantifiable metric that defines “success.”
- How does it feel when someone visits my website for the first time? Do they feel comfortable navigating through my content without getting overwhelmed by information overload or repetitive copywriting elements such as headers or footers at every page transition point (such as clicking on a button)?
Step Two: Create your content.
- Create a content strategy. Content is king, so you’ll need to create a plan for what kind of content you’d like to have on your site. First, decide whether or not you want it to include blog posts or videos; both can be effective ways to engage with visitors and build an audience. Next, consider which topics will be most useful for your users, and draft a list of article ideas that cover those topics in-depth. Once this is done, find out if there’s anything else they need help understanding before they buy—for example: “What are some common problems people have with [product name]?”
- Create a content calendar. Now that you’ve got all the pieces laid out for creating new pages on your website (and their corresponding titles), it’s time to figure out how often each should be updated in order for them all to stay fresh in visitors’ minds over time.”
Step Three: Choose a color scheme.
Select a color scheme that is consistent with your brand.
The colors you choose should reflect the personality of your company, and be easy to read.
If you’re aiming for something more muted, consider an elegant color palette like black and gray—or try pairing those two neutrals with a bright accent color (a blue or orange) for an upscale look that’s still tasteful.
Step Four: Find the right theme.
In this section, you’ll learn about the different types of themes and how to choose the right one for your site.
- Choose a theme that matches your brand. A website theme should reflect what the company stands for and what they’re doing. For example, if you’re selling luxury cars on your website, then a theme that emphasizes luxury would be ideal for you in order to create an image of exclusivity and quality in the minds of customers. Similarly, if you’re an online clothing store or a travel agency, choosing a theme with images of clothes or vacation destinations would be more appropriate than anything else.
- Choose one that matches your content. The look and feel of your website has no less importance than its functionality; in fact, it may even be more important because it will affect the way clients perceive their experience when visiting your website—and whether they return at all! For example: if there is too much text or not enough images on each page (or both), people might lose interest quickly because nothing really catches their attention visually anymore; so make sure everything looks attractive enough before showing others around–even though this might require some work up front initially!
Step Five: Set up your email and social media accounts.
Now that your website is up and running, it’s time to set up some email and social media accounts. This will help you keep track of things like customer inquiries, new orders, and more.
First, be sure to set up an email account for your business. We highly recommend you set up your email using your domain – such as [email protected]. This looks far more professional than using an “@gmail” or “@yahoo” address!
Second, consider setting up social media accounts as well (like Facebook or Twitter). While these might not be essential at first glance (especially if you plan on focusing primarily on e-commerce), they can still help build brand awareness outside of traditional advertising channels—and that means more visibility in search engines like Google!
Step Six: Get found online.
- Get found online.
This is the most important step of all, because if people don’t find your website, they can’t visit it. The first thing you need to do is register with Google My Business (GMB). This will help potential customers find you on search engine results pages (SERPs), which is crucial for getting traffic to your site and converting those visitors into business leads or sales. Next, set up a blog on your website to regularly communicate with customers about relevant topics and give them more opportunities to engage with you as an expert in the field. And finally, create profiles on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter so that prospective customers can follow along with what you have going on in real-time—plus use hashtags so others can easily find them when searching!
- Note: Please note that this step does not apply if you already have an audience built up from prior work experiences/accomplishments; however it would still benefit everyone else who wants one but don’t know how!
By following these steps, you’ll be on your way to building a beautiful website that helps your business grow.
Building a website can be compared to building a house. You don’t just start with the roof and hope that it’s going to be structurally sound; you need to have a plan, do research, and make sure you have the right tools for the job.
The following steps are designed to help you create a beautiful website that helps your business grow:
- Kick off by creating an idea board (or “pitch pile”) of things that inspire you about your site’s concept or design—and keep adding things as they come along! It’s important at this point not to get too caught up in details—just jot down anything that comes into mind or looks good when you see it online or on paper. This will serve as your jumping-off point later on when we start working on templates together.
- Once we’ve started designing templates from scratch based off of our pitch pile ideas, it will be time for some serious research! We’ll need more inspiration at this point than ever before; luckily there are plenty of websites out there with free downloads available for download (check out these resources if interested). They’re also usually open-source so no copyright issues arise when using them either!
Overwhelmed at the thought of building a DIY Website? Looking for an expert web designer in Glasgow to help?
We’ve worked with hundreds of clients on web design projects for all sorts of industries throughout Scotland. We predominately build websites for businesses in Glasgow, however, we work with companies throughout the UK and as far as the US and Canada!
A large portion of our clients come to us having attempted to build their own website first and finding it too difficult, too time-consuming or just not getting the results they’re looking for. If you can relate to this with your current web design project – don’t despair! Drop us a message today, and we’ll be happy to help.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this blog post has helped you think about how to create the perfect website for your business. Remember that it doesn’t have to be complicated in one go: staying focused on the big picture will help you build a site that works for you. In addition, don’t forget we’re just an email away should you ever decide “web designer” is not a hat you want to wear in your business anymore!