The website building process can be overwhelming for a business owner who often already has very little “extra” time in their day. Following are some essential tips to keep in mind during the website build. We hope they will serve to make the experience a great one.
Disclaimer: Several similes and metaphors are used throughout to help visualize different elements of the web build. We apologize ahead of time if this seems excessive, but we have found that like a home, on the face, a website appears simple and perhaps common when viewing it, but building a home is much different than only looking at one. One simile down, several to go.
Goals need to be defined
Without goals, football is just people running around a field. Likewise, if you don’t have clear goals set up for what you want your site to accomplish, the website development process can be chaotic. Examples of goal topics for a business site might be conversions, speed, informational, aesthetics. If your primary goal as a business website owner is to get a form fill or a phone call, always keep that top of mind through the process.
Prioritize your goals
Sometimes goals can be conflicting, so it’s important to prioritize your goals. One of your goals may be to have the most amazing and cool looking site, but if your goal is to have a fast site that gets leads, you may need to compromise some “coolness” to keep your site fast and effective.
Sitemaps are your roadmaps
If you think of the building of a site like a journey, the sitemap is what helps everyone from you, the owner, to the designer, to the developer all stay on the same path. If the website was a living organism, the sitemap is the skeleton of your website. It’s what your meat (content) will hang from. If you’re not familiar with what a sitemap is, put simply, it’s a list of all pages and subpages that make up your site.
Content is King
You may have heard this many times. It’s because it’s true. When it comes to a website being both effective and successful, good content is the key. Many business owners, from practitioners to retailers, have made the mistake of not taking content into account when starting and working on their websites.
Choose your content wisely
There are three things to keep in mind with content for your business site.
Content should be unique. Content should be relevant. Content should be efficient. Efficient? Yes! Too much content can be detrimental in two aspects: it can appear spammy to search engines, and it can turn off users, causing your bounce rate to increase. On the reverse side, too little content can make your site irrelevant to search engines and turn off users who may not think you know what you’re talking about.
It’s not over when it’s over
Once your site is up and launched, the new journey has begun. A journey of growing and maintaining your new website – like a garden. Once a garden bed is made, it needs to be planted, watered, weeded, etc. Your website is similar. Without maintenance and new content, a fresh new website can soon become stale and even broken. Make sure you have a plan in place to continue to grow and maintain your website so you can harvest the benefits for a long time to come.