Owning a website is a necessity for any serious business, and starting one is not what, I will suggest, you rush into – because it takes a lot of time to achieve your expected result.
Not so long ago, designing and setting up a website was like performing surgery. It was too technical and solely for experts. And doing website maintenance was practically a full-time job, couple with frustration. There was no way every business or individual could manage a site.
But today, you can own a website without breaking the bank. Almost anyone can have a website for minimal investment.
4 THINGS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER BEFORE STARTING YOUR WEBSITE
HAVE A VISION
Too many businesses really don’t know what they want from their website. Some see it as a basic online presence but you can get more than that.
Many website owners forget that having a vision is the first and most crucial step in the design process, before you start designing pages, you must take time to carefully and strategically plan ahead. To help define your vision, consider these questions:
- What is the purpose of your website?
- And what type of website do you want? (Online Store, Blog, School, business etc.)
There is nothing more frustrating than visiting a website in search of some important information and then you are asked to buy some (or irrelevant) products. Likewise, looking for a specific product or service on a website and finding it difficult to purchase it easily on the website.
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PREPARE GOOD CONTENT
A good website is not just about putting up beautiful pages; the content needs to be relevant, brief, and perfectly in tune with your vision. Capture the visitor’s attention with strong headlines, graphics and titles.
Let your visitors know exactly what your site is all about at the first glance.
Do some research to know who your online customers/visitors will be, also know what other sites they visit, have a look at these sites and identify the ones you like their style and what is it about their layout and design that will work for you?
You can also read about GDPR – What you need to know
GET A DOMAIN NAME
When choosing a domain name, I always recommend making it to be as short as possible.
Instead of using “www.kensyfashionhouselimited.com”, “www.kensyfashion.com” is way better
a name that can be remembered easily and identical to your business name. You may have thought of a fantastic domain name but that doesn’t necessarily mean you were the first to thought of it. You also need to search for its availability. A good place to do a domain name search is www.whois.com or any domain hosting site.
GET A GOOD DEVELOPER
If you can design and develop your website you don’t need this. If not, you need to get a good web developer (not a designer) that can bring your vision to life. In most cases, I will recommend that you use someone that is physically close to you so that distance will not be an issue when communicating. It can take an average of 3 weeks to build a website (base on the scope of the project and the availability of contents).
GET A WEB HOSTING COMPANY
You need to get a good hosting company that have zero tolerance on downtime. If you employed the service of a developer, he can assist you, with his experience, to get a good and reliable hosting company.
All hosting company are not equal.
Apart from their quality service, you need to consider how good their after-sales service are, because during the cause of your website development, you might run into issues and if your hosting company don’t have a good listening hears to your problem, this can be frustrating.
Also you need to make sure they have multiple support platforms where you can tender issue to them, and using a company that uses only telephone as the only means of communication will cost you more especially if you are not in the same country with the company.
With these considerations, you are good to go with your website.
