5 Basics Every Business Owner Should Understand Before Building a Website

Building business websites

Before you start your website, you need to have a website plan. You wouldn’t start your business without a business plan, and it shouldn’t be any different from your website. Understanding the following points upfront will enable you to have a smoother road as you create your website.

Things You Should Know Before Creating A Business Website

1. Your Site Needs a Well Thought Out Structure

If you start your site by throwing up some random pages and a blog post here and there, you are going to find yourself with a big mess 6 months to a year down the line. If your site is not well structured, you will provide a bad user experience, and potentially hurt your rankings in Google.

Having a good site structure allows Google to understand how pages relate to one another and figure out how they should rank your site. If your posts or pages are not categorized neatly and structured from the beginning, it could take you a while to get them back in the order you want them to be.

Planning out your website and structure on a mind map site before you start your site can help you understand how it will operate and what it is going to look like once it is set up.

You need to ask yourself questions like:

  • What is important about the structure?
  • How should you set up the navigation?
  • Will you have testimonials on your site?
  • Will you place customer logos?
  • Do you have any accolades you can feature?

Knowing these things before you or your web developer get started will help you create a site that you can be proud of.

2. Your Design Needs to Align With Your Overall Goal

Once you have determined your overall goal, your site design needs to point everyone to the next step to walk them toward your desired action.

Maybe that desired action is signing up for your email list, or maybe you want them to leave you a review on Google. Whatever your desired action is, your site should be designed in a way that leads them to that action.

If you want them to click one option over another, make that option more prominent and inviting. Minimize the option you do not want them to take using a dull color or a smaller font. Use a bright color and bold lettering for the option you do want them to pick.

Designing your site should not only be about how it looks to the eye; it should be about how it converts. You can make small changes that will help your site convert better, but you need to make sure to do A/B testing to see which ones work best for you.

3. You Will Need a Domain Name & Hosting

While you can go with websites that will provide you with a domain name and hosting, you need to know how to register a domain name and understand what hosting is. Having a basic understanding of how the parts of your site work are important before you get into the thick of it.

Registering a domain name can be done through multiple domain sales platforms like the infamous GoDaddy and other sites. Your domain name is how people can type a simple code (your .com,.net,.org, etc.) and be taken to your website to view the information there.

Your hosting is where your website is physically stored on a computer. You may have shared hosting (which is less expensive), or you might have a dedicated server that only has your website on it. Depending on how large your website is and what volume or traffic it is seeing, it depends on the hosting option you need.

4. Not All CMS Platforms Are Created Equal

Not all CMS platforms are as good as the other. There are plenty of good options, but if you want the best, you should go with WordPress.org. WordPress.org is a CMS that allows you to have a self-hosted website that you own the rights to. You can take down or put up anything that you want on the site without having to worry about any moderators taking it down.

If you use the other version of WordPress, WordPress.com, it is not self-hosted and runs the risk of your website being deleted at the whim of an administrator.

5. Choosing the Right Tools for Your Website Is Key

Depending on the goals that you have for your website, you may need different tools. If you are using WordPress.org, these will come in the form of plugins. Plugins will allow you to perform almost any action imaginable and many of them allow you to integrate with other great tools that you need for your website to be successful.

There are both free and paid plugins that you can either install from the plugins area or purchase and upload for installation.

Conclusion

Now you have more of an understanding of how you should proceed with your website creation. Having at least a basic knowledge of how things work will allow you to work through any challenges that arise without confusion as if you didn’t have the information.

What are some other important aspects of building an online presence that business owners should take note of? Share a comment with your expertise in the section below.

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