Ready to create a website with your domain name? Great!
Before you start building your site, you need a plan. When creating your plan, think about your purpose and goals for creating your website. Purposes and goals influence site requirements, which in turn influence site design and construction. Below is a list of 10 things to keep in mind when creating your site plan and requirements list.
10 things to keep in mind when planning your site
- Be honest with yourself.
- Do you have the time and expertise needed to create the site you have in mind? There are website builders you can use to quickly create a site, but if you want a custom-built site, hire a professional. Please consider that.
- How many pages does your site need?
- Sit down and plan the user experience you want to achieve. Not every website needs 20 or more web pages. If you’re creating an online store, you’ll need things like product landing pages and terms and conditions pages. If your goal is to create a single landing page to sell attached domain names, you don’t need a complex multi-page site.
- Site storage.
- Content requires a repository. Make sure you have enough bandwidth to accommodate your current needs and growth.
- The details are your friend.
- Think of all the ways you want visitors to interact with your site. Do you want the option to email or fill out a form to contact us? Do you need product listings or trading tools? Do you want to provide a map so people can find your physical location?
- Plan a comprehensive online presence.
- Your website must link or integrate with your social media accounts. If possible, also include reviews and other types of social proof.
- Optimize for device type.
- Not everyone has access to the web from their desktop. Make sure your site is built to display well on mobile devices.
- Security, security, security.
- Plan to purchase SSL and Sitelock to give your visitors peace of mind. An easy way to guarantee your site’s traffic will drop is to provide no protection to your site visitors.
- Built with SEO in mind.
- Good SEO gets your site and content discovered in the SERPs. Make sure your strategy is comprehensive and addresses on-page, off-page, and technical SEO elements.
- Measure success.
- Determine the KPIs you will use to measure the success of your site. Is it determined by time on page, overall traffic, conversions, or something else entirely? If you can’t measure performance, you’ll never know if you’re achieving your goals.
- Make plans for the future.
- Where will your online business or blog be seen a year from now? What about five years from now? Are you doing what you need to do now to be successful then?
Ready to build your website?