The Thrilling Task Of Building a Website

Every time we create something new we go from zero to one.

Peter Thiel

Building a Website 101

Creating a website is a perfect way for any small business to have an online presence. A competent, attractive website can generate leads for the business because it conveys credibility and reliability. Although the process of creating a website can seem tedious, you can learn to create your personalized site on your own.

Regardless of the type of website you want to create, this is a guide on how to create a website from square one. If you’re wondering what platform you should use, I recommend using WordPress as a good start.

Steps for creating a website

1. Determine your goals and brand attributes
2. Look at the competition for inspiration
3. Get a domain name
4. Determine your color and fonts
5. Formulate your website layout
6. Organize your content
7. SEO
8. Design your site to be Mobile and User friendly

Determine your goals and brand attributes

Goals give you clarity and focus to find out the website you will want to create. Whether it’s a business, non-profit, or blog website, you need goals. These goals should be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timely. With this basis for your goals, the website you desire will be created in no time.

While putting together the website, it is important that you come up with the brand attributes. The brand attributes give a structure to the website’s build. In other words, it helps shape the site for your ideal target audience. For example, Uber’s keywords would be the following: professional, modern, and high-tech. Another example would be Airbnb with the keywords inclusive, inviting, and friendly. Ensure that you’ve got these two things completed and you’re off to a great start.

Look at Competition for Inspiration

Let’s say that your website was being sold at the store, how would it stand out? This is where you can study the competition to see how your site could be different. Milanote is a wonderful app that can assist you in this task. With this app, you’re able to collect inspirational content and use it to craft your website. This can come from all websites or media that you’re attracted to. These can be found on business websites, blogs, and anywhere else you can think of. I am not advocating for you to take or plagiarize their work but rather as a model of what you could create on your website. With the inspiration, it can be a guide to characterize and inspire your design

Get a domain

Choosing a domain for a website is like choosing the right address for your home. You’re finding your permanent home for your online presence. While finding the right domain, try not to be too complex. Make sure that your domain is unique and stands out in some way. The domain can include the business name as well as .com or .org. If you run into trouble with figuring out your domain name, use a website name generator for some ideas.

Generally, website builders include a domain with it, but you can purchase your personalized one. This is the website that I used for choosing my domain as well as hosting. Picking the right domain for the website improves your website’s authority with visitors and search engines. Search engines will make it easier for people to find your website online.

Determine your color and font

Determining your color(s) and font should be relatively easy after you’ve got your brand attributes. The colors you want on your website will display your brand keywords. For example, if you’re aiming for an optimistic or adventurous color, use orange on the site. If self-expression is an attribute use a light blue to depict it. It’s color psychology which is what the color communicates to the users.

The fonts also play in hand with the brand attributes. If you want a vintage or elegant text, be sure to use PT Serif or Lora. When it comes to a modern, simple, or clean look, Open Sans is the font you desire. Again, it is all about what the brand attributes are for the website, and these will be your guide.

Examples:

Open Sans, Roboto, Lato. Google recommended fonts that are used on interfaces like computers, tablets, or touchscreens for a modern look.

PT Serif, Lora, Merriweather. Google-recommended fonts are associated with vintage or exclusive websites that are good for traditional reading.

Formulate your website layout

The WordPress website builder allows for a smooth website build with little coding needed to create your site. The code is already included in the software to assist you. All you need to do is choose the right website template for the site and add the ideas of the visual details you want on the site. This goes back to the competition in which you developed inspiration for your ideas. It lessens some of the mental strain of what to put on the site.

Organize your content

This essentially is the blueprint of your site construction. In organizing your content, you’ll create the pages such as the home page, about, contact, etc. It is about figuring out how you want to connect all the pages. This can be done by establishing your goal or goals for the website. What do you want users to see or do when they approach your site? Is the site a service-based site, a blog with interesting reads, or a non-profit trying to broaden its audience?

After figuring out the goal of your site, it’s time to reverse engineer the process. Asking questions like what I would want to see if I was the ideal user for the site can help. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes, then start building following what they might want. Also, make sure the website offers users smooth transitions from one page to another. You don’t want them clicking several times to find other pages.

It is quite simple to do this, just add a website menu that is visible on every page. If you create a one-page website, make sure to add an anchor menu to scroll to the desired part.

The Necessary pages

When building a professional website, it should include some of the following pages:

• An enticing homepage. This is the front page of your site and what catches the user’s attention. It should be attractive and informational. It is very important that you show the essential elements of your website from the get-go.
• A conspicuous gallery exhibiting your brand, products, or services. This is where your visitors can get a better understanding of what your site has to offer. Take the time to write descriptive products that will capture the potential client’s attention.
• An About Page. This page is your online business card. The about page presents who you are, what you’re about, strengths, values, and objectives. Along with this, you can include more info that visitors might want to know about your business
• A contact section. Make it easy for your visitors to contact instead of them having to hunt the info down. On this page, you should create a list of contact numbers, emails, social links, and other ways that visitors can contact you. Lastly, it’s good practice to add crucial contact info on the footer of your website.
• A blog. With a blog, you’re able to continuously post consistent and new content to your website. You’ll gain experience with SEO and become an expert with it as you continue to boost your authority online.
  Testimonials page. This page is where you can keep a record of all your satisfied clients. You can put their raving reviews about your services or business to impress potential clients. The more positive unbiased reviews for your site the better.

Optimizing for SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization and is the optimization of your website so your pages rank high on search engines. This is vital when you’re setting up your new site. You want to ensure that it can be found by Google and other search engines for exposure. The more attention you attract, the high the likelihood of a potential client or target audience can find your site to book your services, read your blogs, or subscribe to your newsletters.

WordPress has a guide to SEO for beginners (link) here and also has plugins (link). The guide gives you the steps to optimize for SEO and will get your site ranking on search engines by the following:

• Explaining SEO and its importance in detail
• The Basics of SEO
• Choosing the best plugin for SEO
• The Best Practices for SEO
• Detailing the Speed and Security for WordPress SEO

Mobile and User-Friendly

Since July 2022, just over 50% of internet usage is stemming from cellular devices and touchscreen devices. Through this Google has created a system in which the SEO determines the ranking for websites based on mobile websites. It is less desired for the desktop, as mobile websites are getting more traffic, and better to optimize for the mobile design to ensure a better experience for those on a touch screen.

The End

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