Creating a unique and creative website can be challenging. There are a number of things you must consider if you want to make your website really work for you. From our experience as one of the top web design agencies in Brisbane, we have put together a few tips that can help you to create a user friendly and attractive website that aligns with your business goals and values, intimately transforming your business.
Investing in your website development can be a significant decision, no matter how big or small your business is. Your Website is your brand's face, and this guide will help create a trendy and high performing website.
1. The Objective of Your New Website
A creative approach to defining the objectives of your new website can result in a website that can reduce operating costs and increase profitability.
Establishing your Website's aim is the first step you need to take before starting on your website design project. Generally a websites objective and purpose is to make people aware of your business and encourage customers to buy your products and services. Showcasing your products online and selling them effectively is the primary aim of most businesses. Other functionality can be included to support your specific target market and clientele.
It is essential to examine and determine the objective behind your website before you get started, resulting in a website built to align with your business goals and objectives.
2. Choosing the Right Domain Name
Your domain name is like the tip of an upside down pyramid. Although usually, the smallest investment in your digital footprint, it becomes the foundation of your website. Which in turn becomes the foundation of your digital footprint. Choosing your domain name wisely is an essential factor of your new website project because it can help to communicate with the users. It is best if you pick a domain name that is easy to read and is considerably short. The domain name reflects the nature of your Website and helps to market your business efficiently.
It can be hard to change the domain name later on, and that is why you should get it right in the first place. Incorporating your brand in your domain name is highly recommended for business websites.
3. Local Web Hosting
It is just smart to choose an Australian website hosting if your business is located in Australia and targets Australian customers. The hosting environment based in Australia means you will be able to get an IP address for your Website, resulting in a faster loading website. The Australian IP address is also ranking factor for local businesses to search engines. The website hosting services offer speed, security, and the best services. You can register your domain and can also register for email hosting services.
4. Choosing the right platform for your Website
There are many great platforms can be used to create a user-friendly, responsive website. When choosing the platform you need to keep the end in mind. For a long term project is best developed on a Open Source platform, such as Joomla or Wordpress, where as if you are just getting started and do not really know where you will end it, a simple 2 page website can act as a landing page to get you started while you develop your brand, content and business direction.
WordPress Websites
WordPress is one of the most popular open-source website platforms that can allow you to create a responsive website. WordPress will enable you to create various websites, including blogs, business websites, and other types of websites. You can ask your a web designer to create your WordPress website with a ready-made WordPress themes. Or have a customised theme developed specifically for your brand.
Joomla Websites
The Joomla platform is an excellent platform developing custom websites with added functionality. This content management platform allows you to create quality content for your Website.
Website as a Service (WaaS)
Website as a Service is a new way of offering websites. These include a monthly fee that covers hosting, maintenance and periodic updates for your website. These platforms are not Open Source and can be be moved from their respective platforms to your own hosting environment.
Shopify
If you are creating a simple online retail shop for your Website, then using the Shopify platform is a great solution. It is the best e-commerce software that is available as a WaaS. The all-in-one e-commerce platform is an excellent choice if you want to develop a simple online platform for selling your goods.
WebMatix
Our WebMatix is a simple Drag and Drop platform that can help you to choose stunning templates and make a visually appealing website.
5. Branding and Your Website Design Project
You branding is the the visual representation of your business. Having necessary visual branding guidelines developed is essential to ensure that your branding is applied consistently across your digital footprint. You have to consider all these important factors and make strategies before you start with your website. If the branding is clear, consistent, contemporary, or you know who your targeted audiences are, it will help you create something extraordinary. The website will be visually appealing, and the traffic will also increase.
The most important thing is to look for a local web design and development team who can work within your branding style guides to create a website that enhances your digital footprint and be the first layer in your on line brand.
6. Content for Your New Website
The planning and creation of the pages or content are crucial if you want to attract a relevant traffic towards your site. Your website should be informative and comprehensive so the visitors can find out what they are looking for. Before getting started you should develop a basic page flow of the website to highlight the main pages.
Start with main, top level pages, and additional pages can be added in at a later stage is necessary. Decide for yourself how many pages you should have for developing content. Define a topic for each page,and write the content around this topic. If the content is relevant and answers the questions of you prospective customers, not only will they have a good experience and an increased likely hood of converting, but the search engines will also look favourably on your content. Images and videos play an important role as people like to watch the content rather than reading it.
7. What Happens when Your Website is Live?
Once your website is live, you will have to decide whether you want to manage it yourself or if you wish to engage an expert to manage it for you. Regular content keeps your website fresh, and you can achieve this by regularly adding content through new blogs, FAQ, case studies etc. When writing content, it is a good idea to search for the right keywords, using short keywords for your services etc and long tailed keywords for your blogs and FAQ's. Getting to know your targeted audience is essential because you can then create content focused on this target audience.
Adding social proof through social media, reviews and directly listings will prove beneficial for your digital footprint as this offers external validation to your digital presence. This is not only a page ranking factor with search engines, but also increase visitors' loyalty and give them a valid reason to trust you.
8. Measure Your Websites ROI
Having clear expectations of how many people are going to visit your website, and how to track conversions once they are on the website is a must before getting started on a website project. Choosing the correct tools, and planning on having these installed on your website will enable you to measure your the ROI spent on your website project. And in turn assist you in planning our future digital marketing. You should know how much you can invest or how much return you will get from your website.
Using Google Web Master and Bing Webmaster are a must, as these tools not only help your web pages to be crawled and processed for indexing, but they also show give you a good indication on the areas needing improvement on your website to achieve a good page ranking.
You can directly add Google Analytics tracking code to your website showing you what the users are doing on the website, including path flow and which pages are visited. You can also set up conversion tracking for your website as it will help measure the effectiveness of your content and any paid digital advertising campaigns you are running.
Take the Next Step With Your Website Design Project
A website is an important tool in your business. It works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, developing your prospective customers perception of your brand and business. It is important that this perception is a true representation of your business. All the points above need to be considered to ensure that your website aligns with your business goals and values, enabling it to really transform your business.
All seems to hard? Complete the form below, and we can help you through the process.
The ICT Shak is a local website design and development company working with small business to embrace the digital world to market their business.
