The 6 Steps for Creating a Website

The 6 Steps for Creating a Website

Everyone and their grandmother has a website in the 21st century, so what is stopping you?

1. Create the purpose or goal of the website

When you create a website, there must be a purpose for it. Is it dedicated to selling handcrafted tea cozies? Gaining customers at your coffee shop? Perhaps it is a blog on the art of fly-fishing. The point is there must be justification for its existence. How can your website help the people who come to view it? This step is the most crucial of all because it forms the basis for your business.

2. Choose the right platform for your website

You will probably want to use a CMS (Content Management System) or a website builder to create your website. This will take care of most of the grunt work for you, which is helpful for those of us who aren't computer programmers. The difference between a CMS and a website builder is how the content of the website is entered and edited: each separate CMS and website builder alike have their own respective interfaces. Which you choose to use comes down to your preferences, and which you find better to work with.

However, there is usually a way to edit the content via HTML or CSS, two of the most common basic coding languages used for creating websites. They go hand-in-hand in building a webpage, but each serves a very unique purpose: HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is used to create the actual content of the page, such as written text, and CSS (Cascade Styling Sheets) is responsible for the design or style of the website, including the layout, visual effects, and background color. So, if you are already a coding master, or are at least willing to learn the basics, this is always an option.

3.   Decide what you want to use for website hosting

This is different from your platform: the platform is how you control what the website looks like and how it is managed. The hosting provider is what actually makes the website appear online.This entails things such as the domain, website speed, server space, etc.

It is always best to look up reviews of the hosting providers you are researching. When you are just starting out it makes sense to pick one with good support, in case you require help. 

4. Choose what you want your domain name to be

This is one of the most important steps in the entire process. Your domain name will be at the forefront of your business's representation online. Whatever it is, it should be specific to the company. It doesn't make sense to have a coffee shop called Organic Planet and the domain name www.organiccoffeeshop.com. It will always be best if you can have the company name or a rendition of it for your domain name: www.organicplanet.com sounds much better than the prior example.

Another note to add is that there are many different endings to choose from for your domain, such as .com, .org, .net, etc. This isn't as important as the domain's actual name, but we still recommend sticking to these more mainstream ones, also known as TLDs (top-level domains).

5. Figure out your details and content

Number five on our checklist is pretty self-explanatory: before you start, you should have all of the necessary details you want to have on your website. This could be the company email, address, opening hours, specials, and any other basic data about the company. Where content is concerned, specific content doesn't have to be remade, but the form should be decided. For example, do you plan on making videos, do you want to have an image gallery, or are you creating a blog? The relevance of this is to help decide on what subpages you would like to have when you finally do set up your website.

Don't worry if you aren't sure what you want right away. It is always possible to add these at a later time. 

6. Last but not least, create your marketing strategy

Once your website is up and completed it is finally time to start implementing your marketing strategy. It doesn't make sense to have a website that nobody can find, so there are a few things you can do to make it more visible. The way most people are going to find it is via a search engine, so what really matters is to improve your visibility on the following: SEO, SEA, social media, and directories. If you are unsure of how to do this, rankingCoach is your best option: the software simplifies this process without the hefty costs of agencies. Perfect for starting your first website, it not only helps you make the changes to get ahead but also explains in detail what each task does.

The marketing plan should be the last step but is a continual process, needed for a website in today's age.

These are the basics for starting a website. If you want more details on any of the specific steps, please feel free to check our older blog articles. There is a lot of good information on these particular topics, especially in our latest article about E-A-T.