Your website is for your customers, both existing and potential, as a 24 /7 shop front providing information they need about your products / services, coupled with a pleasant design, an easy to use navigation system, viewable on a PC, Laptop, Tablet or Smartphone.
So your website is not for you, the business owner, it’s not for the designer, or the content writer, or the developer. It must focus on your customers. Lose sight of that and your website will not be able to convert visits to sales.
So what do you want your website to do? Regardless of size and function, all websites have a number of things in common.
Setup
Purpose
Decide what purpose your website will have; from a simple online brochure to a product / service sales site.
Domain Name
Register a Domain Name that reflects your Business name. For example:
- www.yourbusinessname.com.au
- www.yourbusinessname.com
- www.yourbusinessname.org.au
- www.yourbusinessname.org
- www.yourbusinessname.net.au
- www.yourbusinessname.net
- www.yourbusinessname.biz
Hosting
Where your domain name will be available to visit on the Internet.
Email
For a professional touch get email addresses:
- info@yourbusinessname.com.au
Ecommerce (Option)
Create another sales channel by selling your products / services directly from your website.
Building
Content
Website information (or content) is what a website visitor sees, reads, hears, or interacts with. Content is primarily text and images, website design should considered separately.
Content Should
- Be meaningful and relevant
- Encourage a customer to make a decision
- Give something of value away for free
- Capture the website visitor’s contact details
Design
The container where the website content is displayed, it should:
- Compliment content, as content is king!
- Be pleasant to look at
- Provide easy to use navigation
- Mimic existing business livery
Responsive
Your website should reorganise its layout to accommodate the device it’s viewed on; PC, Laptop, Tablet or Smartphone.
Promotion
CMS – Content Management System
This allows you to both update existing site content and add new content.
- No need for ongoing costs just to update your site
- A CMS can also help you with your SEO efforts
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation
SEO (Internal)
Create appropriate content for Search Engines (such as Google, Yahoo and Bing).
- Have content that matches what customers search for when they use a Search Engine
SEO (External)
Using the tools provided by Search Engines to better the search result ranking of your site.
- Both free and paid tools are available
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) involves paying for better promotion of your website in search results
Social Media
Using social media to market your business.
Email Marketing
Using email to market your business.
