You don’t have to have previous experience in coding or programming to start a website. A multitude of tools and services exist online, catering to the uninitiated. While it is true that knowledge of these things can make the process much easier, for the inexperienced creating a website is still a walk in the park.
Whether you are interested in starting a business or a blog, website design is an important consideration. Unless your site is optimized and easy to use, retaining visitors will be a struggle. Here is everything you need to know about:
Finding A Hosting Service to Work With
An area of web design that’s overlooked by amateurs is hosting. Ask any expert and they will tell you that hosting is one of the most important parts of setting up a website, however. For those on budgets, shared web hosting should be explored. Individuals with a little more to spend can rent their own servers. Before agreeing to work with a host and signing a contract with them, research the speed of their servers and find out what past customers think of them. Doing so will help you to avoid bad hosts.
Hiring A Professional Programmer
Most people’s first point of call when they are creating a website is a template service, of which there are many online. Anybody with real experience in programming will be able to tell you that the vast majority of these services are a waste of time and money. Rather than creating your website yourself, using such a service, outsource to a professional programmer, ideally with a lot of experience and a strong portfolio. To determine a programmer’s suitability, visit their portfolio site and check out the websites mentioned there — ask for a copy of their resume as well.
Creating An Extensive and Detailed Plan
Until you know exactly what you want from your website, any programmer inquiries should be put on hold. The first thing a web developer is going to ask you when you get in touch is for a general idea of what you want your website to look like. If you have not used the internet much or do not know what the perfect website looks like, spend some time researching. A good way of explaining what you want is by drawing a picture of your ideal site, so you can show it to the programmer you employ.
Downloading Exclusive, Paid Templates
It is unreasonable for this post or any other to suggest that every budding online business person is going to be able to pay for a programmer. Obviously, programmers are expensive and are therefore not suited to all budgets. If spending is tight then instead of hiring a programmer, use a template service but make use of exclusive templates and plugins. Some WordPress templates and plugins can help you to create sites that rival the quality of some amateur programmers’. Tech journals are great places to turn to learn about these templates and plugins. The same is also true for online forums and blogs.
Making Use of Online Marketing
Unless your business already has a large following, one of your main priorities will probably be attracting traffic. Without experience in marketing attracting visitors can be difficult. Nobody is going to find your website by accident, the internet isn’t set up like that anymore. To drive traffic you need to employ SEM (search engine marketing), keywords, and ideally social media marketing. You can hire an expert service to manage your site’s marketing efforts for you, so you can focus on other things.
Conducting Extensive Research
Research into your niche and industry should be another of your priorities. People have been using the internet for nearly 30 years now, so there’s not really anything that hasn’t been done. You are entering into a world of competition and conflict. If you want your site to perform then you need to know what your competitors are doing successfully, so you can do it better. Online research can be a challenge which is why, again, it might be worth hiring a team of marketers, who will be able to manage research of this kind for you.
Identifying Your Niche, Then Ranking
Identifying your niche is one of the first things you should be doing, as part of the website development process. Until you are aware of where your business fits in, marketing will be difficult. An effective form of marketing already mentioned, SEM, can make your site more visible online. Ranking your website higher than your competitors’ sites on search engines is a good way of driving traffic. The more visible it is, the easier it will be to gain consumer trust and make sales. Do not attempt to rank your own site, hire an expert to do it for you. Without experience, independent ranking can go horribly wrong not to mention suck up a lot of time and money.
Ensure Your Site is Mobile-friendly
Until your website is optimized for mobile users, it will not appear high on any of the search engines, and attracting traffic will be difficult. Most internet users browse on their mobile devices, preferring them over laptops and computers. By not optimizing your site for mobile users, you are alienating a huge chunk of your visitors. It is possible for people on mobile devices to use websites not optimized for their use, but it can be slow and glitchy. Take steps to ensure all of your site’s features are optimized for mobile users so you can get new visitors. Ask customers to leave feedback relative to your site’s performance so you can identify future changes that need to be made.
Collaborate With Other Websites
In business, collaboration is one of the most effective ways of expanding to and entering new markets. Depending on your niche collaboration could be a good way for you to get more traffic on your website. You should not collaborate with businesses directly in your niche, i.e., if you sell underwear then don’t work with an underwear company, work with an overwear one. Selective collaborations can be an extremely effective way of boosting traffic and also making more sales, which like receiving traffic, should be another one of your main priorities. When collaborating make sure you set clear boundaries and do not allow collaborators to steal your audience from you. Many will try to.
Why would anybody want to work for anybody else? Slaving away and submitting your life to another person is a waste of time and effort. As long as you have a dream and a website, you can achieve anything. More and more people are realizing how easy it is to go independent and are turning to the internet in search of riches.