Having a professional looking, fully functioning website right is one of the most important parts of your marketing strategy. After all it is the first thing people see when searching for your company online. Even people who have never stepped foot inside your shop or premises can get an overall impression of your business simply by looking at your website. Therefore, it is really important that your site reflects your goals/values as a business and provides customers with an accurate depiction of what they can expect from your products/services. Here are 5 helpful tips on how to plan the perfect website.
Define the purpose of your website
Before creating any content, it is important to define what it is you hope to achieve from your website. For example, should you decide you want to sell products directly through your website you will need to consider factors such as how customers will pay safely, how much shipping costs will be etc. You should also think about the type of audience you wish to attract as this will impact how go about planning the branding of your website and the overall look and feel of the site. For example, if you want to appeal to a younger audience you might want a website that is colorful and interactive, maybe it even has a few video’s for visitors to click on to. Alternatively, if you are a solicitor or a lawyer you don’t want your website to be full of loud and garish colors, instead it should be cleanly laid out and clear and concise in the information
Setting a budget for your website
Websites can be expensive, so it helps to have a figure in mind for how much you wish to spend before starting out. If you’re a small business and you’re restricted to a tight budget, you may want to consider using one of the many great DIY website building platforms out there such as Wix or WordPress. These are fairly simple to use for people without any web-building experience and come with a great range of pre-designed templates and plugins. The cost of creating a website on these platforms is free, however there are additional costs for different add-ons so it helps to create a list of the features you will need for your website before creating it. If you have a slightly larger budget and you feel like you need a professional web designer to create your website for you, then it may be a good idea to do some market research before-hand and find out how much local web designers charge. You may also wish to look through a portfolio of their previous work to see if they are the right person for your business needs.
Prepare content ahead of time
Once you have identified your target audience and decided what your website objectives are, you can then start writing the content for your site. You can either do this yourself or hire a professional content-writer who might be able to give your content a more professional sheen. If you want to get your website up and running as fast as possible then should make sure you have your content prepared ahead of the construction phase as this will reduce the time it takes for the site to go live.
Think about your branding
When designing your site, you also want to think about the visual aspects of your branding and how it relates to your company’s existing promotional material. Most companies have a uniform color scheme which lets customers know just by looking at the colours, style of font etc that the material is unique to that company. According to research, color is one of a brand’s most effective communication tools and a signature color can boost brand recognition by up to 80%.