So you want to have an online presence and you have already registered your domain and social media addresses. Now it’s time for the next step, planning your website.
When you’re preparing everything, the first question is, what do you want to have your website accomplish? Do you just want a web presence where people can get basic information about your business? Or, do you want an ecommerce site, or do you own a restaurant or hotel and want a way for visitors to make reservations?
Once you have decided your online approach, it’s time for planning your website’s structure. Starting with your main page, what other pages do you want to have? An “About Us” page? A services directory? A food menu? A blog? Some of the things that I feel are essential to a website is a contact page and an “about” page. You want to be able to relay to visitors what you do and how they can get in contact with you.
After you decide what kind of pages you want or need for your site, it’s time to create the content. The best route to take would be to create everything digitally by typing it all up. This will help later on in the construction of the site whether you decide to build it yourself or hire a designer to put it all together.
If you know code and are comfortable with coding the site yourself, great. If not, there are many CMS (Content Management Systems) available for you to use such as WordPress and Joomla. This also depends on how you want your site to function. It’s always good to write down how you want your site to function first and then work your way to designing it. Once you have the skeleton in place, it’s time to design.
Be sure to stop by next week where I will be showcasing the stages of designing and building your website.
If you or your business is looking to have a website designed and built, we can help you. Valentine Media has over fifteen years of web design experience and offers a high quality, affordable websites. Feel free to contact us for a quote on your next project.
We are also active on social media sites like facebook, be sure to “like” us and check us out for updates on projects along with helpful tips and tricks to help with your business.
