Starting a website is one of the simplest, most difficult things a company can do. OK, a bit of a confusing sentence there, but if you think about it, it’s right on target. You buy a URL (web address), get hosting, make a page and voila, your site is born. Now, of course what appears to be incredibly simple is incredibly complex in many things. Let’s take this one step at a time and you’ll see that a tremendous amount of thought needs to go into planning a website before you ever get to the URL purchase stage.
Find a URL
Finding a URL requires some research. First determine what your website is goign to be and going to sell. Google ranks your domain name in it’s search criteria, so a business selling bracelets would do best to have the word in it’s domain name. Look up your domain on a respected domain selling website, I prefer GoDaddy, but any large hosting company site will also sell domain names. Once you’ve exhausted all the names in your head and not found one to your liking, do a keyword search for your product with Google’s Keyword tool. When you decide to purchase your domain name, make sure you do not make a 1 year purchase. Do it for a minimum of 3 years, that says to Google that you’re serious about your business and not some fly-by-night site, it works into your page ranking and your Search Engine Results Page (SERP) listing. But don’t buy your domain name yet, because there are combo deals to be had with your hosting package…
Find Website Hosting
Websites can be hosted on any server in the world. You want a company with 24/7 support and the promise of 99.999% uptime. Don’t do it yourself! The cost of hosting is so reasonable, it mitigates you having to do server maintenance and the headaches of server attacks. Again, I recommend using a big company and secure more than a one year deal. Most companies will price it out month to month, but you’ll save a bunch by going with a multi-year package. And they tend to reduce the domain purchase to extremely minimal.
Build Your Site
Now here is where we get into the investment in your new business. Building a website can cost you anywhere from nothing to hundreds of thousands of dollars and everywhere in between. Be realistic. Storyboard it yourself so you know EXACTLY what you want. A storyboard is a series of pictures telling a story. Your website is going to be your business’ story. So, lay out what you envision it to be. Home page, product pages, about company page, informational page, etc. Every site is different, but before you ever start buiding, give yourself an idea of what it’s goign to be. Do some research on the big players in your industry. Get some ideas on what they do that you like and dislike.
Now, there are several ways to go with building a website.
Do it yourself
If you have the time and technical capbilities, doign it yourself lets you have complete control and artistic freedom. There are many programs to help you along such as Adobe’s Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expressions. Most hosting companies have content management systems where you can build pages and manage content.
Hire a Local College Kid or Relative
I know this sounds crazy…and it is. Many sites are built like this, however and while it will get you started and online more quickly and cheaply, these sites always look amateurish and rarely get the traffic back that you lose initially. Remember, you only have one chance to make a first impression.
Hire a professional
If you have a serious business, then be serious about building a website. There are thousands of companies out there that create websites. Look around at other sites and see what you like. Then find out who made it, many web design companies add their own link at the bottom of each page. Shop around. The be ready to let them know EXACTLY what you want. Make sure they know SEO, so you don’t have to have your site redone later on.
Things to think about
- Marketing
- Social Media
- Forums
- E-Commerce
I’ll cover each of these in future blogs.
Now, I’ve shared my thoughts, how about yours?
