How to prepare for your new website
Creating a new website is an exciting opportunity to showcase your business, engage your audience, and achieve your goals. Proper preparation is key to ensuring a smooth process and a successful outcome. This guide outlines the essential steps to prepare for your new website project.
Define Your Goals
Determine the primary purpose of your website. Ask yourself is it to sell products, provide information, generate leads, or build brand awareness? Next, identify how you will measure success (e.g., increased traffic, sales, sign-ups, or user engagement).
Understand Your Audience
Define your main audience. Consider demographics, interests, and online behaviour and then identify what your audience is looking for and how your website can meet their needs.
Check Out Your Competitors
Examine your competitors' websites to identify their strengths and features you should incorporate. Ask what makes your business different and what will make your website will stand out.
Choose a Domain Name
Select a domain name that is relevant, easy to remember, and reflects your brand. It'll probably reflect your business name, but doesn't have to.
Decide on Features and Functionality
Identify features that your website must include, such as contact forms, e-commerce, booking systems, or blogs.
Gather Branding Elements
Ensure that your logo reflects your business. This can be a good time to update or revise your logo. Think about colour schemes, fonts, and imagery that you want to use on your website.
Outline Your Pages and Content
List all the pages you think you'll need (e.g., Home, About, Services, Contact, Blog), and prepare any text, images, videos, and other content that should be used. If necessary, consider hiring a photographer. You might also want to decide on the tone of your content (e.g., professional, friendly, casual).
Plan for Website Maintenance
Decide who will handle updates and how often. A regularly refreshed and updated website keeps visitors interested and encourages them to return. Make sure your team is updated following changes in personnel, consider altering the main image on your home page to reflect the season or newsworthy events and remember that a blog is a great way to add new and topical content.
