So for whatever reason you need a new website. You may well already have a website and are looking for a refresh or maybe you’re starting a new business from scratch. Either way the principals remain the same and the more you plan it out, the quicker you will build it and the more effective it will be when it’s done.
As you will be aware, the first place potential customers loo is your website so proper planning at this stage will ensure that they can find the information that they need easily and quickly.
There are a few basic principals to stick to which will ensure you end up with a great site as a result.
1. Branding
Your website directly represents your company so it is essential that you branding runs through the whole site from start to finish. Having this in mind from the very start will help you produce a professional, clean site which has the identity of your business running through it’s core.
Your branding should always include the following:
Logo
This is the first and foremost part of your branding. Customers should always be able to see this when interacting with you. If you don’t already have one, it is very easy and cheap to use an online logo generator or get someone to design one for you.
Your core message
Visitors should easily be able to see what you’re about and what you do. It is also more important more recently to reflect any wholesome values such as environmental credentials or charitable lineups that you may have. It is important to make sure that you are giving a consistent representation of this throughout your whole site content.
Colour schemes
Make sure you use colours that work with your logo and are consistent throughout the site so that your overall branding comes across throughout the site.
Design
The customer journey should be thought about so that you have a site where your customers can flow through the site and easily find the information that they need
Fonts
You should choose a limited set of fonts to use throughout the site. These should be easily readable.
2. Useability
We mentioned this above and it is so important as if your site is difficult to use then your customer will simply become frustrated and go somewhere else.
You should think about the following:
Navigation
Make sure that your navigation bar or menu is simple and easy to use. The faster a customer can find their end result, the faster they will be happy to give you their money.
Heading and labels
Again, this all adds to your customer finding what they want quickly so make sure items are labelled and your content is broken down under relevant headings for ease of reading.
Search Bar
Consider adding a search bar to your site. This can often be a little labour intensive to set up but it can help keep your customer on the site so it’s well worth it in the end.
Be mobile friendly
This is now more important than ever as 70% of search traffic is now mobile based. Google will also rank websites higher based on how mobile friendly they are.
3. Keep your blog consistent
Make sure you write articles that are relevant to your business as this content not only keep users engaged it will also help massively with your SEO and so help increase your ranking for relevant searches to your business or service.
Keep updating your blog on a regular basis to ensure users come back for more.
4. Security
Make sure you have all of the security you need in place. If you are using a web builder platform such as Wix, this will already be in place so it’s not something to worry about, you just need to be aware of it. If you are processing payments online and taking data from customers you will need an SSL certificate which you will be able to add on from your hosting provider.
5. Solid SEO
SEO is arguably the most important part of building a website. You need to make sure that the content of the site is relevant to and includes the search terms that you would like to be found for on the search engines.
Without SEO your website will simply not be found so making sure you build the site with SEO running through the core will put you ahead from the start
Luckily we at Boost366 can help you with this and we have some amazing options for any budget, so check out our amazing SEO options here.
6. Web address
You may well have chosen this already as most people start their website journey by choosing their web address. However, if you haven’t, making sure that your address does what it says on the tin is very important. Users are far more likely to click on a website with a web address which has the search term within it that they are looking for so if you sell blue bananas, make sure your web address is something bluebananas.co.uk
Your web address also makes up part of Googles algorithm so having a descriptive web address will help you with your SEO as well.
7. Budget
It is cheaper than ever to build a website now. This is true whether you get a professional to help you or you do it yourself. There are a lot of web designers out there who charge a couple of hundred pounds for a simple site. If you are willing to put in some work yourself you can use one of a number of web builder platforms which are all excellent and produce some seriously professional results for a very low monthly fee indeed.
So there you go, our 7 key points to building your website. Stick to these and you will find the process enjoyable, easy, cost effective and hopefully lucrative. Don’t forget to hit us up for your SEO needs at www.boost366.co.uk