Where to Start with Your Website

It is super important to have a solid online presence these days. Search engines have taken over from the yellow pages. People are online at all times through their mobiles. To make sure your website is doing your business justice it is important to do a bit of planning. We’ve put together some of the essentials needed to get your website right.

Your Website Goals

The first step to having a great website is understanding what you want from your website. What are the main goals of your website? Do you want your website to provide information about your products/services? Do you want it to drive people to call you for more information? Do you want your website to sell products online? Do you want your website to do everything? It is also important to make goals that you can track and measure. For example you can track how many sales you get from your online store. You can then analyse your website sales figures to see if the website is successful. Alternatively you can set up a 1300 number that only appears on your website. This way all calls you receive on this line are generated from your website. The more you can track and measure the more you can see what is and what isn’t working.

Your Audience

Once you have established your website goals it is time to understand your audience and what they want. The more you can understand your target market the more effective your website will be. Identify your target market and start talking to them (they could be current customers, friends, family etc.). Find out how they interact with websites and what techniques they respond to (Do they like to see customer testimonials? Do they want to see product photos? Do they want to see that you are a small friendly local business?). Take what you learn from them and put it together with your knowledge of the industry to work out the best strategy for your website. Researching your target market also comes back to how you want to position your brand which we covered previously in our 3 Steps to create a Strong Brand post.

The Future of Your Website

One of the key steps a lot of businesses skip is thinking about the future of their website, just as it’s important to think about the future of your business. Consider how you would like your website to be working for you in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years and beyond. Think about what you might possibly need and what direction your industry/business is going. By considering and anticipating the future you can make sure your website has the potential to grow as you grow without the need for creating a whole new website. Making sure you have a flexible website solution from the start will save you time and money in the long run. It will make your life a lot easier when it comes time to update or change the direction/goal of your business, and your website.

Find a Designer Who Understands your Business

After establishing these key areas it is time to talk to a web designer. A good web designer will understand your business and work with you to design and build a website that meets your goals, speaks directly to your target market and has the potential to be easily tweaked in the future.

Stay tuned into the Spicy Blog this month as we are talking about all things Start Up Business. If you liked this article please click the share buttons below and if you have any handy tips that businesses should think about when approaching a website please add them in the comment section below. We’d love to know what you think is important when starting a new website.

Good luck!