Getting started
You want your web site to reflect you and your more importantly your business image. So what is the first step? Your business name. Perhaps you have already come up with something clever or simple. But is that name available as a domain name? The dot com extension will always be your best option. If it is not available you and you really want the name you may opt for another extension such as net, us, biz, etc. However, you may want to reconsider is the dot com taken is in your same industry.
So you have your domain name and business name all picked out. Now you want to registar your business name in the county or parish where you will be doing business and then purchase the domain. Why do you need to register the name first? There may be another business with the name already which means you will not be allowed to do business with that name. So you do not want to be stuck with a domain name that will be useless to you.
Content
Content is the most important part of any web site. But your content needs to sound like and reflect you. This is the single most important that according to Google. Google has several algorithms that are constantly crawling the web repeatedly. These will pick up changes to your site and determine whether you appear in a search result and where you will fall in those results.
Think back to your English teacher and how said teacher would know if you or someone else had copied from a source. Perhaps not out right plagiarism but it was close enough. Google is able to do the same thing but extremely better. This is why you really want to write your own content. Because just like that teacher Google will penalize you.
So what can I do if I can’t think of what to write? It is fine to copy from others as long as you make it your own. Look at other people’s web sites. Read their content. Does something sound really good to you? Copy and paste it into a document to refer to later. Continue doing this for awhile. Then take a break.
When you return to your document read everything again and get rid of anything that is unnecessarily redundant.
Now the important part. Read a paragraph and think about what it is saying. Now say that back in your own words. Emphasizing how it applies to you or your business. Write that down. Now compare it to the original paragraph. It should be very different or at least different enough once you have finished compiling your content. Do this for everything you found in your search. Once you have finished re arrange the paragraphs into categories or topics. These will become your pages.
Page or Pages
How many pages do you need? At least one and yes, sometimes that is all you need. Typically you will have a page that explains what you do, a page on how to contact you, if you have multiple employees than a page that identifies them and their qualifications.
Many businesses have brochures that they hand out explaining their services. It is quite acceptable to use portions of this material on your web site. This will actually help reinforce your credibility to a potential client. When your brochure and site sound the same it forms the personality of your business. So if the printer suggest a change in the wording think before accepting the change. Will it still sound like you.
Once you have your written content completed you are ready to had things over to whomever is compiling or “Theming” your web site. Yes, I realize you will want to add images. But those may be added later. Once your text is up read it again and have others whose opinion you trust do so as well. Again listen to their feed back. If you make the change suggested will it still sound like you? If so do it if not ignore it.
Media
Images do make a site more interesting and break up the white space. But there is a lot you have to be careful of when obtaining images. First is there a royalty attached to the image? If you are getting the image from a printer because you used it in your brochure ask when selecting it for the brochure if you will be able to use it on your web site. The printer may recommend a similar image instead. When looking on the internet search using “free to use” in quotes or “public domain” in quotes in your search. But be aware that just because an image is in the results does NOT mean it is guaranteed to be in public domain. You will want to go to the image and read before copying or downloading the image to use on your web site.
When using location images or things unique to your local such as a statue or building it may be more difficult to find an image that is free to use. But you do have an advantage these days. Find an image of the object that you like. Now really study that image. You can most likely figure out the angle it was taken and the time of day. Take a trip to the location and take the picture yourself with your phone. You can take multiple pictures to be certain it looks right. Now you have the picture you wanted and you know it is yours to use.
So now you have you images and you know where you want them to go on your pages. Again it is time to send them to whomever is compiling or “Theming” your web site. This person will have to optimize or compress your images. If you would like to see how this works you may try it out yourself. TinyPNG is a free site which is used often by site builders to compress images before uploading them to web sites. You will notice that it makes the size of the file smaller while retaining the clarity of the image. This helps the image load faster on the web page.
Less is more when it comes to images. Even compressed images will slow down the time it takes for your page to load. Google uses this as a ranking factor. Because of this web site administrators, web masters, web builders, etc will set the images on your site to load last or in the background. This does help with ranking. But it also brings up an important consideration, picture placement.
Have you ever been reading a page on web and suddenly an image loads and everything on the page shifts causing you to lose your place? This is annoying and breaks the flow in what you are reading. Suddenly you have to start over or find where you were and back up a bit. This is what may happen when an image can not be compressed without losing quality and is slow to load. So think about where you are placing your images on your pages. If you see this is happening consider moving the image down, swapping it with another image, or not using it on that page.
Are we done yet?
No, your web site will never be truly finished. As your business grows you will want to alter text, images, add or consolidate pages. Just as you will update brochures and handouts you will want to update your site.
To Blog or not to Blog
This is not as tricky a question as most people think. Typically it is because most people don’t know how a blog impacts their web site. If you choose to blog you must be consistent. If you are going to blog once a month then try to do so on the same day each month. If you are going to post a to your blog each week or every other week then do so and try to so it on the same day of the week.
What if you don’t have time for that? Then perhaps Blogging isn’t for you. But you really want a blog. WordPress like many Content Management Systems (CMS) has a way to help. When you create a post (that is like a page, but is inside your Blog) you may decide to post it, make it available to the public, now or schedule when it will post. This will allow you to write up several posts at once and schedule them to post in a regular schedule.
I would recommend having at least twelve posts. Once you have about half of these posted go back to the first one. Does it need to be updated? If so update it and move it into your schedule of future posts. This can save you from having to come up with another Blog post.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this has helped you make you web site plan and find a place to start. Unlike your printed materials your web site is not set in stone, a typo is not going to cost you a lot of money to correct. While your web site may be a bit of work at first it will be a useful tool for your business in the long run.
Wait, what about search engine optimization? SEO is a very complex topic, which is why I have another post that walks through the evolution of how Google search has changed and what you may do to help improve your site rankings.
By R. A. Ross | August 04, 2020
The date is when this post was revised.