The Website Design Process – 6 Steps to Online Success
Do you want a website but don’t know where to start?
Setting up a new website may involve more planning than you think. From deciding on the goals to marketing it & finally potential customers, building an effective website takes some planning.
To help guide you, we’ve created a guideline of the website design process. We have outlined the core elements to consider when investing in a new website or re-investing in your current website to ensure you get the best results for your business.
Step 1) Decide on the main purpose of your website
Websites can have many purposes. For many it’s the forefront of their business such as an online store, for some it’s a place of valuable information for visitors, and for others it’s a way to capture leads. Defining from the start what you want out of your website is half the battle. Doing this will assist you to create the perfect website. Once you have defined the purpose of the website, now you have to set the goals of website.
Step 2) Define your goals
Too often websites are built without defining the goals of the website. Don’t make that common mistake. As part of the website design process, a fundamental decision is what are you trying to achieve from your website? Make sure benchmarks for your goals are set. These should be realistic, measurable, specific and timely.
Step 3) Working out the content needs
Once you know why you need a website and what you want it to do, you can now focus on the other questions. Who is it for? What do they need? What actions do you want them to take? And how to best provide it? Most of the time you may have to start small; you can create the main pages and then expand your site as time goes by and when your business grows. Along with well written content, have a think about what additional content you might need to make your website truly useful for the target audience. Additional content could be an online checkout, PDF brochures, ‘how to’ videos and social media links or like/share buttons.
Step 4) Choosing and purchasing a domain name and hosting service
Every website needs a domain and hosting package. Generally, your domain should closely resemble your business name and service offered. For Australian business it’s best to have a .com.au TLD – although you may want to consider registering additional domains for brand protection purposes. This is extremely important when there is an extension particularly relevant to your business like .cafe or .photography.
You may not need an overly expensive hosting package to begin with, but it is recommended having your site hosted in Australia – with a provider that offers great customer support, close to 100% uptime plus options to scale your hosting package as your business grows – is essential.
Step 5) Getting set up
Depending on your own skill level and confidence, you may be able to set up the site yourself. Using a service such as with a CRM like WordPress can provide you with a professional-looking site at a reasonable price (or free). There are a series of plugins that can provide additional functionality. However, others may prefer to hire a professional to design a custom website for them, and manage the updates on an ongoing basis.
Step 6) Marketing
Once you have your website, you need to ensure people know about it and you are actively driving traffic to it. You can do this through advertising (either on Google, Bing, Yahoo and Facebook, or out in the real world), social media channels, search engine optimisation (SEO), regular content updates and word of mouth. Each channel has its pros and cons, and how you market your site will depend on your goals and your target audience.
There are a lot of considerations and setting up a website takes and effort, but once you create a plan the process becomes much easier.
Contact The Marketing Mix for help building the perfect website for your business needs.
Do you want a website but don’t know where to start?
Setting up a new website may involve more planning than you think. From deciding on the goals to marketing it & finally potential customers, building an effective website takes some planning.
To help guide you, we’ve created a guideline of the website design process. We have outlined the core elements to consider when investing in a new website or re-investing in your current website to ensure you get the best results for your business.