Category: Website features

10 Steps to plan your website

Posted on by bonnyadmin

You will need the following to set up your basic website:

  1. The first step is to select a domain name. It should reflect the name and nature of business and your goal(s) as well as your reason(s) for being online. If you give me the desired keywords, I can look this up for you and/or obtain it for you. You will also want to check social media to be sure the account name matching the domain name you want is available. I can do the social media set up also.
  2. Obtain a hosting plan, or I can provide one for you.
  3. Design your branding for the site, which means your fonts, logo, tagline and color scheme. Fonts should contrast well against the background for easy reading. (One of my biggest peeves: when the font is barely grey on white background. I struggle to read it, and I’m not old yet!)
  4. Map out desired visitor actions, then share this map with others to see if they agree it is logical.
  5. Prepare your mission statement (keep concise, compare/align to other businesses).
  6. Collect data needed for the site such as business name, logo, contact info, media (photos and videos) you will use. Plan for a schedule of posts to keep the information on the site fresh, so visitors will return often!
  7. Prepare text of testimonials/reviews from actual previous clients. If the clients allow it, include their name or initials and a photo or avatar so that it is more personal.
  8. Gather frequently asked questions and their answers for a FAQ.
  9. Decide what look your site should have. There are many trending styles: parallax scrolling, magazine style, portfolio, etc.
  10. Decide which social media accounts you will use, and plan out how often you will post/update. The nice thing about using social media is that they can be synced with your website to auto-post any new posts on the website. I call it double dipping on promotion!

For add-ons, you will need also:

Data: Gather up information on your products/services for your e-commerce store including title, pricing, description, photos, sale dates, variations of color, size, service plan features etc.

Now what?

Once your website is up and running, you will need training on how to keep it current.

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