So You Need a New Website? Here’s Where You Should Start

With nearly 5 billion people using the internet everyday, it’s no wonder businesses are constantly searching for new and engaging ways to claim space. If you are a business owner and don’t have a website, you’re missing out on a large portion of potential customers.

With a website, you can sell products or services online, establish yourself as an expert in your industry, generate new leads for your business, reach and connect with new customers, and provide your brand enhanced visibility. Sound good to you?

This article will provide 7 helpful tips to guide you through creating a new website.

1. Decide on the purpose of your website

Building a website from scratch requires thoughtful website planning. Begin with the why of creating a site first. Do you want to sell products and services? Do you want a blog? Maybe it will live as the home of your podcast or portfolio of your work.

Once you’ve chosen what type of website you want to create, begin with these three planning steps:

1. Create concrete goals
2. Define your brand
3. Conduct competitor research

Once you’ve completed these steps, you’re in a great position to build a website tailored to your business needs, and that will attract your ideal customer. 

Create concrete goals

Before you really get into creating a website, it’s important to consider whether or not you’d want to sell items online. If that is your goal, check out our blog about the Definitive Guide to Creating an Online Store, or about the GoDaddy Online Store Builder to make building an e-commerce website for your small business quick and easy.

If you want to do more than sell products on your site, it’s important to ask yourself the question, “What do I want my website to accomplish for my business?” Maybe you want to increase revenue or monthly visitors. Regardless of what you choose, ensure it aligns with your brand.

Creating concrete goals gives you a way to track your business’s success. Instead of creating one big goal, try and break it down into smaller, more attainable steps you can regularly track. Here are some things to consider as you begin:

• Create realistic goals.
• Ensure your goals are well-defined.
• Align with your business mission.Ensure they’re measurable.
• Set a time-frame for each goal.

When you set achievable goals, you increase morale as well as your output. 

Define your brand

Casting a large net makes it difficult to create a recognizable identity, so you should only target people who closely align with your business’s niche in the marketplace. Consider questions like What kind of site are you building? What tone do you want? What are you selling?

Understanding your audience and tailoring your website’s language to their needs means you’ll have a better chance of getting them to act.  

Conduct competitor research

When you reach this point, it’s good to analyze your competitors’ online presence. Conducting research on competitors is important for identifying gaps or opportunities in your niche. Consider studying things like:

• Their website design
• Their content strategy
• Product/service offerings
• Unique value proposition

Find strengths you’d want to emulate, and pinpoint weaknesses to avoid such as confusing navigation or thin content. Find gaps where you can differentiate. If all competitors don’t have mobile optimization, ensure yours is user-friendly. If competition has bad vials, use high-quality photography.

In order to stand out, craft a unique value proposition. When you conduct competitor research, you ensure your website stands apart. Utilize those insights to inform strategic decisions so that your site attracts your ideal audience. 

2. Choose a domain name

Your domain name represents your brand online, so when it’s time to choose one, choose carefully. Go for a name that’s short, memorable, and highlights either your business or offerings. Include relevant keywords to boost visibility in search engines, and don’t limit yourself by only looking for domains ending in .com.

Newer extension options such as .io or .co allows for more space to get creative with your domain name. Just ensure the extension fits your business.

Avoid hyphens, numbers, and names that are difficult to spell. Even if the .com domain name is taken, adding your location or a descriptive keyword can help you find an available option. Before finding a domain name, research any names you’re considering using to ensure they aren’t trademarked or already taken. You can use internet tools to appraise potential name for suggest alternatives. Once you’ve found one that works, act fast because good names get taken up quick.

How much does a domain cost?

Ever wondered how much a domain name costs? Basic domains can cost less than $20 a year for the first year, while established names with history can have higher prices. Quality domain names are a worthwhile investment for any serious business.

Even if you aren’t ready to build a website yet, register your favorite option right away. Later down the road, you can forward additional domains to your primary site. Try and buy misspellings or variations to protect your brand. With some thought and domain search savvy, you can secure a great name to jumpstart your online presence. Have your domain become synonymous with your brand.

3. Choose a hosting plan

A hosting plan is the foundation your website is built on, so when you choose, pick wisely when making your website. Regardless if you use a site builder, you’ll likely need separate hosting. When you create a website, it’s important to match the hosting to your needs. 

Which hosting plan should I choose? 

For sites like blogs or small online stores, shared hosting providers deliver affordable, basic support. Although resources are shared with other sites, it’s a cost-effective option if you have light traffic. Virtual private server or VPS hosting partitions server space for better performance at a higher price. It provides more storage and faster speeds.

Dedicated hosting is the best options for websites that see high traffic as it provides unlimited resources and priority support. However, it is the more expensive option.

Based on site content like images and videos, consider your bandwidth and storage needs. Storage limits can hinder site growth, so try and avoid restricted plans. Uptime guarantees and 24/7 support are important for any business site.

Get enhanced security features like firewalls and backups to protect against cyber threats and to protect your content if problems occur. Scalable plans better equip you if unexpected traffic spikes happen.

Make sure your hosting provider offers website backups in the event something out of your control happens and your site goes offline.   

Do I need both hosting and a web builder?  

You don’t necessarily need both a hosting and website builder, but you’d want to read the fine print at your chosen provider to confirm what features are included. A lot of website builders will bundle hosting services with domain registration, site builders, email accounts, and other tools to simplify the process.

When you choose the right web hosting service, you gain the freedom to customize your site design and content. Conduct research to find a plan meeting your specifications and that fits within your budget. You can easily build your online presence with a quality host and a robust infrastructure in place.  

4. Choose a website building solution

Once your domain name and hosting plan are selected, you would now need to think about how to build your website. Many website building options exist, the two most popular being, a customer website builder and WordPress.

Custom website builder

If you don’t want to hire a professional and want to build a website without learning code, a website builder like the GoDaddy Website Builder is the perfect option for you. A free website builder allows you to quickly add photos, customize pages, and more, all from your mobile device. The swipe-to-style editor makes the website building process easy.

Website builders are good for entrepreneurs and small business owners wanting to establish their online presence quickly. Website builders are easy, require no coding, and are good way to get started.

WordPress

WordPress is the perfect option if you want more flexibility and control over your website. Although you don’t necessarily need advanced knowledge of coding, WordPress does require more technical skill than your average go-to-drag-and-drop builder. If you’re willing to put in the time to learn code, you can provide added functionality to your site through plugins, features, and options.

With GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting, you can use the Quick Start Wizard to build out your website.

5. Build your website

You’re ready to build your website. With your domain, hosting, and platform selected, you’re ready to bring it to life. 

Create website goals

Are you selling a product online? Would you like to be able to schedule appointments online? Understanding what your goals are from the beginning will help you get on the right path for building a website that suits your needs.

If you’re unsure of what your goals should be, the GoDaddy Website Builder is the perfect place to start. This tool can provide some great ideas to help you figure out your goals and build around them.

Choosing the type of website you want can help you figure our the types of images and content you should include on your website. For example, a baker might want images of baking supplies and content about recipes and food.

From there, you’ll choose a name. Remember: your name can be updated at any time. Then you’d enter your contact information which includes your phone number and email address. If you’re a brick-and-mortar, you can use a business address on your site.

Pick a theme and color scheme

Once you have a mockup of your website, you can begin to customize it. When you choose your theme, pick one that aligns with your brand identity and industry. Go for a clean, simple theme structure that makes navigation easy. Try and avoid cluttered themes that could distract from your content. Ensure the theme is responsive so it looks good across all type of devices, not just desktop. Mobile optimization is super important.  Limit your color palette to two or three colors with one dominant shade and one or two other accent colors.

Using images on your website

Having quality images should be a part of your content strategy. When selecting photos for your website:

• Use legal images. Choosing the first image you see in Google is not a legal way to use photos. Using places like Pixaby or Unsplash for stock photos if you don’t have the means to take your own are good options.
• Use high-quality images. Don’t underestimate the power of captivating images. They can inspire people to act, so make sure you don’t turn customers away with blurry photos. Try to take or choose photos that relate to your brand and resonate with your audience.
• Optimize your image. Ensure your photos are appropriately sized so that they don’t affect load time, and that they are named with relevant keywords.

Choose your fonts

With fonts, go for readability and cohesion as it relates to your brand identity. To maintain simplicity, limit your font selections to one or two fonts. Fonts like Arial or Verdana work well online and are easy to read. Try and avoid fancy cursive or script fonts because they’re not readable. A standard web-safe font loads quickly, but Google Fonts offer a larger variety of options if you’re aiming for something unique.

If you use unfamiliar fonts, ensure they render properly across devices and browsers. Make sure there’s adequate contrast between font colors and backgrounds for maximum clarity. 

Create a logo

When you create a logo for your website you should:

• Keep it simple. Effective logos are both clean and memorable. They should establish brand identity through good use of imagery, shapes, fonts, and color.
• Make it scalable. Test it at different sizes so it looks good on all mediums.
• Hire the help of a graphic designer. A graphic designer cal help you achieve a polished look, and create a unique logo.

GoDaddy’s logo maker allows you to effortlessly customize hundreds of templates or even design your own logo with intuitive editor and downloadable files.

Build your site structure 

Although the pages you include on your website will vary depending on the purpose of your website, your site should generally include a home page, calls-to-action, primary contact information, products and services section, an about us, products/services, contact us page, testimonials, and blog posts or articles.  

Optimize for SEO

Creating a website won’t automatically attract visitors to your site. Therefore, you should keep SEO in mind as you create your site. SEO boils down to:

• Keywords: Longer queues generally have less competition. By adding keywords such as your religion or related products and services can help indicate your page is relevant. 
• Links: Getting links to your website from social and respectable websites, tell search engines that your website is both popular and reliable.   
• Tech: Most of the SEO elements are taken care of for you with website builders. This includes things like SSL certificates, configuration files, and site speed.

Create engaging content

Whatever you want your website visitors to do, be that buy, or sign up, you need to create contact that compels them to act. Stunning imagery paired with compelling language makes a huge difference and will make your content shine online. 

Write your web content

You have a brand, you have a voice, and you can use it to inspire trust in customers, regardless if you have prior writing skills or not. Crafting up content doesn’t have to be difficult. All you need to do is keep your audience in mind, determine a tone of voice, layout your information in a way that’s pleasing to the eye, have fun with it, and leverage AI if you need it as a powerful guide. 

6. Test and launch your website

Make sure you thoroughly review everything on your website before you hit the publish button. Here are some things to to before you launch your website:

• Proofread all text to ensure it’s error free, accurate, and consistent.
• Click on every button to ensure they’re functional. If there are any broken links, fix them.
• Remove filler template content and customize all your text and images.
• Test your site across multiple browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari to pick up on any discrepancies.
• Check the mobile responsiveness on phones and tablets, and tap buttons to test functionality.
• Examine your site speed utilizing tools such as Kingdom or Google PageSpeed Insights. Optimize your images if they need it.
• Get opinions! Ask your friends and family to provide feedback on your site for issues you might have overlooked, and implement the feedback.
• Sign up for Google Analytics to monitor your site’s performance once it’s live. Be sure to add a tracking code before launch.
• Boost your SEO and secure your site by enabling an SSL certificate.
• Give yourself some time to edit. Wait one or two weeks for final tweaks. When you rush, you run the risk of mistakes going public.

When you feel like everything looks good and is ready to go, hit publish! Make sure to promote your site on social media and update online profiles with your new URL.

Mistakes happen. If you find your site has some here and there you can still edit your site after launch.

7. Manage, maintain & grow your site

Even after you hit publish, your website will still need attention. To better manage, maintain, and grow your online presence you’ll want to:

• Encrypt your data and boost security, install an SSL certificate. Doing this also helps with SEO.
• Layer in targeted keywords throughout your content to improve search visibility.
• Build backlinks by guest blogging, getting reviews, and sharing testimonials.
• Optimize images by compressing files for faster loading.
• For better SEO, adjust HTML tags and meta descriptions.
• Leverage paid advertising.
• Create a business email that reflects your domain name.
• Leverage email marketing to engage subscribers by sending regular newsletters to your subscribers.
• Post often on social media channels and interact with your audience.
• Pinpoint high-performing pages and fix underperforming ones by using Google Analytics.
• Test new pages and layouts by tracking engagement metrics over time.
• Prevent hacking by installing security plugins if you’re using WordPress or similar platforms.
• Update your software often and schedule regular malware scans.In the event you may need to restore your site due to issues, back up your site regularly.
• To manage the busy work, consider hiring the digital marketing services to help.
• Outsource your social media marketing so you can focus on running your business.

You have your foundation built, now it’s time to refine it based on performance data and visitor feedback. You can optimize your site by using tools like A/B testing, and promoting it consistently.

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