The First Step to Building a Website
Having a fully functional website with a layout that offers quick load times, good navigation and easy to read text is very important and your web designer will take care of these features for you. However, the first step to building a website starts before the designer begins creating the layout and implementing these features.
Building a website starts with a plan that addresses why you need a site and what you hope to accomplish once it launches. It will include your short and long-term goals for the site along with how you plan to use it. In other words, do you plan to sell products or provide users with information about your particular niche? Having a plan and knowing what you hope to accomplish will help you build a site that meets your goals and the needs of your visitors.
Assess the Needs of Your Visitors
While creating your plan, you also need to assess the needs of your visitors. Think about your targeted audience and ask yourself these questions. What will appeal to them the most and encourage users to continue to visit your site? If you were the visitor, what would you expect or want to see on the site? What kind of incentives do you plan to offer to keep your visitors interested? This type of information will help you build a website that caters to the needs of your visitors, so you can encourage repeat visits.
If your targeted audience is senior citizens and you build a site that caters to the younger generation, you’re not going to get the traffic you hoped for. Therefore, it’s vital that you know your audience and keep their needs in mind when building your site so they’ll want to come back. The more times someone visits your site, the odds of them making a purchase or using your services greatly increases. When you cater to the needs of your visitors, they’ll also be more likely to tell others about your website and the products that you have to offer.
Preparing Content
No website is complete without content and you’ll need to have it ready before you can launch your site but that’s just the beginning. You’ll need to decide if you’re going to create the content yourself or hire someone to do it for you. Either way, you’ll need content that includes good SEO practices and you need to have a way to continue adding content on a regular basis after your site launches. If you don’t provide your visitors with something new and interesting, there will be no need for them to come back after the first visit.
The first step to building a website requires having a plan, assessing the needs of your targeted audience and preparing the content. Once you have these three things in order, it’s time to work with your web designer to put your plan into action. Having this information available right from the start will save time and help to ensure your website meets both your needs and those of your visitors.
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