Step One: What Do I Want My Website For?

Every website needs a reason to be, a purpose to fulfill, or a job to do!

The first step in creating any website is to define the reason why you need one. Have a brainstorming session by yourself or with your team and answer the following questions:

Who are we trying to reach with our website?

It is very important to know the target audience or “demographic” you want to appeal to with your website (or any form of digital marketing for your organization). A site intended for high-level industry professionals will and should have a very different look, feel, and function to a site intended for children or a site intended for selling fashion accessories. A good thought experiment is to write down the attributes you would want in your “ideal” visitor. This will really help in answering the other questions going forward about your site.

What do we want website visitors to be able to do?

A website can allow a visitor to find and do any number of things and it is up to you to decide what functions you want to provide. Is your site just about information? Are you looking to sell a product or encourage prospective clients to contact you about buying a service? Do you want visitors to be able to get an online quote or to be able to donate money? Don’t limit your vision. If you don’t have the full budget, or your business isn’t quite ready to service all the features you want, you can always split your project into stages and launch a site that can easily grow, expand, and develop when you’re ready.

What “call to action” do we want for our visitors?

This is a very important, arguably the MOST important question to answer about your website before starting any web design process. How do you want a visitor to act when they find your website? Do you simply want to encourage them to call? Do you want them to make an online contact request? Do you want them to go ahead and make a purchase or a booking right there on your site? Do you want them to send you information, or perhaps subscribe to your mailing list?
Here again it can help to make a simple point-by-point plan on paper, from “A visitor arrives at your homepage…” to “A visitor leaves your website.” Having this information at hand will enable you or your designer to tailor every element of your site to making this happen.

What “style” do we want for our site?

Almost certainly if you are reading this, you have spent some significant time “surfing the web”. By now you know what you like, what you dislike, and what you absolutely love. If you are in a business or organization you have very likely spent time looking at your competitors’ website design, or sites similar to the one you want to build. Bookmark these sites and write down what you like or hate about each. You may love the way a menu works in one site but hate the color scheme. On another you may like the way they take orders, but find the site hard to navigate. At our company, we call these sites picked out by a client “exemplars” and they can be invaluable when creating the look, feel, and function of a site that will meet what the client’s vision for their project. There is nothing wrong with adapting a good idea from one site to use on your own or taking inspiration from another site in the design of your own. As a web designer, this is actually one of the highest compliments one can receive. On the flip side, don’t try to re-invent the whole website design concept. Visitors expect to find navigation menus in certain places and pages such as a “Contact Us” are a useful standard. The balance in style is between building a site that looks pleasing, distinctive, and professional, but has the type of functionality a visitor expects and can easily navigate.

What is our budget for this project?

Budget is a very important factor when approaching a website design project. Some costs, such as domain registration and a hosting account, cannot be avoided. But, if money is extremely tight, you may consider building a site yourself or finding a “talented amateur” family member or friend who will give you a hugely discounted price.
If you choose to go with a professional you should ask for project proposals and estimates from each of the companies you contact.
Beware of companies that can quote you a price without hearing any details of your project. Don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions! Your website design represents a significant investment and you should get clear explanations of what is involved and how the project is priced. On the other hand, you should also be ultra clear and specific about the process flow of your business. Remember, your designer might know little to nothing about your industry and without sufficient specifics from you, there can end up being unexpected costs when the designer has to rework the design and coding.

Step Two: Finding and Registering A Domain Name

So, you have your website planned out. You know who you want to visit your site, what you want them to do when they get there, and have a pretty good idea of how you want your website design to look. Now, it’s time to give your site a name. For a website, that means “registering a domain name”. Domain names can be registered at a low cost (from about $8 to $20 depending on the domain type). If you are working with a web design company, they may be able to suggest available names and take care of the registration process for you.

You have almost certainly seen ads on the TV for “domain registration for only $0.99”. Do not be surprised if that bargain price only comes as part of a “package” when purchasing, such as hosting or e-mail accounts. Don’t be afraid to shop around and read what people say about a registrar online (Google their name plus “reviews” or “customer service”).

Of course, before you can register you need to find an available name! Every registrar, and a great many web design and hosting companies, have a domain name search feature. If your organization name is very much your brand, or something people are likely to search for online, buying a domain that reflects this can be a good idea. Alternatively, you can search for a name that contains “keywords” relevant to your business that visitors may use when searching. Some studies also suggest that having “keywords” in your domain can also slightly help your eventual search engine placement.

A competent web professional should be able to suggest five or six good (and more importantly available) options for you, or you can start searching until you find a name you like that can be registered. If you are absolutely set on a name already registered there’s a possibility the owner might sell, but this can be very slim (75% of owners simply don’t return inquiries about buying their domain names). Buying an already registered domain from a third party owner can be VERY expensive if not handled with caution, as many domains for sale are heavily overpriced. A web professional should be able to give you guidance if that is something you’re considering.

You should also be aware of the “extension” (.com, .org, .net, .biz, .co.uk) that will work best for your project. The “.com” extension is the standard for a business, but if you are a charity or social organization, you may be better with a “.org”.

If you’re looking to self-register, a good place to start is with GoDaddy.com. No company has 100% perfect reviews, but we have used them since 2002 and have always been very pleased with their service!

Think about domains such as:

amazon.com
ebay.com
cnn.com

that have entered the general public’s everyday vocabulary.

A great domain name sticks in the mind, tells the public who you are, and is like an online signature.
There are still millions of great domains not yet taken and the price to make them yours can be as little as $15 a year.
The Wilmington website design team can help you find the domain that is just right for you!

The rules for a good domain name are simple:

1. Keep it simple

A great domain name is easy to remember and easy to type. If your name is Robert and you sell bicycles you might want to build your site under bobsbikes.com (sadly already taken by a media company in Alabama).

Search for a domain name that is short, sharp, and says as much as possible about your business.

2. Pick the right extension

A domain “extension” is what comes after the dot at the end of the domain name, such as .com or .net. Below is a table that explains the meaning and use of the main domain extensions, but you might want to invest in a few variations to ensure that no other organization adopts a variation of your name.

3. Check the variations

If you want to register davescabs.com make sure that daves-cabs.com is not used by a rival company. Many organizations (including Wilmington Web) own the hyphenated versions of their domain names for business security. With the low price of domain registration, it makes very good sense to protect your name.

Wilmington Web administers dozens of new domain names every month and we are experts in choosing and setting up the right domain. Call us today and let us take the worry out of getting the best domain for your organization!

What do the domain extensions mean?

.COM	The classic domain extension. A .com name is used for any commercial venture, usually based in the United States.
.NET	This extension is generally used for any online business that supplies to the Internet industry itself. Why then are we not a .net? Wilmington Web supplies to the end customer and also deals in offline business such as training. A .com is more all encompassing than a .net extension.
.ORG	This extension is used for non-profit organizations such as community groups, charities, and special interest groups.
.BIZ	Developed to rival the .com extension. These can be effective if used in conjunction with a memorable domain name.
.US	Used for any website distinctively and solely to do with the United States.
.INFO	Used for any website whose sole purpose is the supply of information. For example, if you simply want to tell people about the species of birds found on the North American continent that would be a suitable use of the .info extension.
.GOV	Solely and exclusively used by the government and local civic bodies to distinguish their websites from companies and individuals.
.CO.UK	Double extensions with a country abbreviation added are most often used for any site trading, or primarily trading, in the country specified.

Step Three: Where Will My Website Live – Finding A “Host”

So you have your project plan and your domain name (whew! this web thing is a lot of work, but trust me the more you plan the better your website will be!). Now you need somewhere for your website to live. This is known as web hosting. For the newcomer, information about web hosting can be baffling and overwhelming. Our parent company, WordwrightWeb, offers flexible web hosting options. This site has a beginners guide to web hosting, but the rules here are similar to finding any service. A great litmus test for any hosting provider is simply to give them a call. If you can’t get a response, spend half an hour talking to a machine, or find you have reached a new friend in India, these are bad signs that when you have a problem, help will be hard to access!

Step Four: Who Will Design My Website?

So, you have a name, a plan, and a place for your website to live. Finally, it is time to start designing your website!
The choice here is to try to build yourself (“self-build”) or find a professional to do the job for you.
A halfway option some use is to find a family member or friend who dabbles in website design and will do the job for as little as a case of beer. I would strongly advise against this route as the design process can be quite intense and is apt to place some strain on any personal relationship if significant redrafting is needed or the design is not all you had hoped for. If your first web designer is not up to the project, you can fire them and move on. Letting go of a family friend can present far more issues!

If choosing to self-build, you should be aware that there will still be costs, most significantly your time, but also possibly in obtaining software to use for coding or manipulating graphics. Although it may not look the case on the screen, a webpage is a complicated computer coded document far more involved than a Word document or even a PowerPoint presentation. There are a lot of factors to consider: various screen sizes and types of browser, optimizing images for fast loading, and perhaps most importantly, building to the best standards for Search Engine Optimization. There are a few simple site-builder programs, many of which come free with your hosting account (such as Yahoo SiteBuilder) that have a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) format. But in many cases, your website design will be limited to templates provided. If you want anything more than basic functionality on your pages, you may well find the software struggles to accommodate you.

Another possibility is to use a content management program such as WordPress, which is free and easy to install on your hosting space. Many companies, including us, offer these as standard with hosting accounts and the software can be installed with just a couple of clicks. If your website is mostly informational, this may well be the solution for you. Both of these programs have extensions that can add some dynamic functionality to your pages but you are still looking at a significant time investment and anything beyond fairly simple pages will start to stretch your learning curve if you are new to web design concepts.

The other option, of course, is to hire a professional web designer. Using a professional can take away all the stress and endless hours of frustration a newcomer finds when building their first website. A good website designer will talk you through the process and go over your needs in detail before providing you with an estimate and a project outline. Again, beware of companies too quick to quote an off the cuff price. Such companies can be website “factories” that turn out the site they want to give you, rather than the site you want, with very little recourse.

As with any profession, with web designers there are sharks in the water. Be VERY wary of anyone asking for full payment up front, making promises that seem too good to be true, or who seem to be avoiding your questions. Another good rule of thumb is how easy a web designer is to contact. If they are quick to return your calls and e-mails, that’s a good sign they will be responsive to your needs.

Another question often not asked is “do you like the web designer?”. For a small business a web design project can mean working quite closely with a designer and a good degree of mutual understanding. A personality clash between client and designer can be a disaster for a project, leaving both sides very unsatisfied. If you find a rapport with your designer, the chances for a successful project certainly increase.

There are a lot more issues with self building and hiring a professional, but if you think of web design like fixing your car you can’t go too far wrong. If you can do the work well yourself, go right ahead. But if you need to hire a professional, look for someone trustworthy, well recommended, accessible, and competitively priced.

Step Five: Letting The World Know Your Website Is There!

So you finally have a website built and online. Time to sit back and watch the hits fly in? Unfortunately, the concept of “if you build it they will come” does not apply to the Internet.

The big concern for almost all website owners is how to rank on the top page of search results. Search Engine Optimization is a complex and contentious area with millions of words written every year trying to explain its mysteries. Here are a few pointers everyone should know.

1. A good website design will start life at launch with all the key factors for optimization in place. Proper use of title and description tags, good keyword density, cross site linking, alt tagging, etc. should all be in place at roll out.

2. If the mantra of the realty business is “location, location, location”, the first cry of good web design is “content, content, content”. I cannot stress this enough. The more value content (interesting, useful, and well written) you can put out there on your website, blog, and social media platforms, the better your website will perform. Remember, if you are putting content elsewhere but on your own site don’t forget to link back to it! Just as important is to keep content fresh. Sites that haven’t changed a word since 2007 attract less return visits and receive lower search engine placements.

3. You don’t have to pay a company a fortune to achieve success. Anyone who owns a website has received the e-mails offering top Google placement for a set monthly fee. In most cases these, are empty promises (you just get a set of doctored stats e-mailed to you every month). Even worse, the company may be using link farming or other techniques considered spammy that could lead to your site being penalized or blacklisted! We understand that your website will grow with you. We will help you nurture your site as a cornerstone of your business, and you will understand why you invest every penny. Ask our existing clients if we are worth it.

4. Get into Social Networking! Start a blog, post a video on YouTube, set up a company page on Facebook, send out newsletters… The possibilities are growing all the time and the more work you put in the better the results you will achieve. Don’t forget to link everything back to your website!!

5. Don’t forget your offline marketing. Your web address should be on business cards, headed paper, fliers, t-shirts, banners, vehicles, in newspaper ads, television ads, radio ads. If you are lucky enough to be interviewed about your project unashamedly plug your website!! The more people see your site name, the more it will stick in their mind as THE place to go for your kind of product or service.

We are waiting to hear from you. Remember that our first consultation is always free and at no obligation. Call us at 910-452-6345.