What are the 5 most important decisions for a business before creating a website?
A vital component of any business in the modern digital age is having a website. It functions as a digital storefront and gives customers a way to interact with your brand. However, building a website is more complicated than it first appears. Before you can launch your website, you must make a number of considerations. The five key choices you must make before developing a business website are covered in this article.
Define Your Website's Purpose and Goals
It’s crucial to establish your website’s purpose and objectives before you begin building it. What do you want your website to achieve, you may ask yourself? Do you want to promote your company, offer information, or sell things online?
You may develop a more focused design for your website that is targeted towards attaining your desired outcomes by having a defined purpose and set of goals for it. Additionally, it will make it simpler for you to gauge the effectiveness of your website and make ongoing modifications.
Choose the Right Platform and Content Management System (CMS)
Your website’s functionality and usability may be significantly impacted by the platform and CMS you choose. With a variety of features and advantages, website builders and CMS choices are widely available.
For instance, you can think about utilising a website builder like Wix or Squarespace if you want a website that is simple to use and manage. As an alternative, you might use a CMS like WordPress or Drupal if you want a website that can be customised more and has more sophisticated capabilities.
It’s crucial to pick a platform and CMS that complement the objectives and purpose of your website. When making a choice, take into account aspects like usability, customization possibilities, and scalability.
Determine Your Website's Structure and Navigation
The organisation and navigation of your website are essential to ensuring a satisfying user experience. It’s crucial to have a clean, well-organized layout that makes it simple for consumers to discover the information they need.
Make a sitemap outlining the architecture of your website as a starting point. This will assist you in deciding which primary pages and subpages to include. You can start creating the navigation menu for your website once you have a sitemap.
Your navigation menu needs to be simple to use and have descriptive labels. To make it simple for people to access various sections of your website, think about employing drop-down menus or a hamburger menu. Additionally, make sure your website’s navigation menu is the same on all of its pages.
Choose the Right Design and Branding Elements
In order to develop your brand identity and make a good first impression, your website’s design and branding components are essential. It’s crucial to select a design and branding elements that are consistent with your brand and complement the function and objectives of your website.
Start by selecting a colour scheme that captures the essence of your brand and its core principles. Make use of legible typography that conveys the tone of your brand. Additionally, you should think about utilising visuals and images that promote the objectives and aims of your website.
It’s crucial to take page load times and mobile friendliness into account when developing your website. Potential clients may become discouraged and have a terrible user experience with a website that loads slowly or is challenging to use on mobile devices.
Plan for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The process of optimising your website for search engine results pages (SERPs) is known as search engine optimisation (SEO). Your online exposure can be increased and organic traffic can be increased with a properly optimised website.
Consider elements like keyword research, on-page optimisation, and link development while making SEO plans. Finding your target audience’s search terms and phrases is known as keyword research. In order to increase your website’s authority and relevance, you must optimise its content, meta tags, and other pages.
To increase the authority of your website, link building entails obtaining high-quality backlinks from other websites.
Hitem Hard Media, 2023
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