1. Domain name
A good domain name (your website name} is one that is short and easy to remember. Choosing the right domain is important for your brand identity and SEO (search engine optimization), so that your business can be found easily on search engines like Bing and Google which leads to more visitors to your site.
You can purchase domain names at Namecheap, Bluehost, and iPage.
2. Hosting
Hosting is an internet service which allows your site to be accessible online; otherwise it would just be files on your computer. Without it no one will be able to view your site. When choosing a hosting company, it is important to check how reliable and secure it is, the services they offer and ensure it suits your site’s needs in terms of traffic, functionality, and space.
Bluehost, A2hosting and Digital Ocean are good hosting companies. Contact Codetype and We will assist you in setting up your hosting.
3. Purpose
Why do you need a website? Are you selling products or services? Do you need to post daily, weekly or monthly articles? Are you looking for a way to engage customers or is it just a site for general company information? Finding out the purpose of your website can help you move forward in deciding how to design your site and what features or functions should be included.
4. Target Audience
It is recommended to know who your audience is and how to keep them interested to build up your website. If your business has a young audience, you may include a bit more animation than if your audience is more elderly.
5. Layout and Color
The colors, layout, and spacing of your website can greatly affect the look and feel of your brand identity. Focus on a neat, clean, professional layout to make your site readable but also enjoyable to look at. Good website designs are simple yet creative.
6. Content
Your website should provide high quality and original informative content about your products or services directed to your target audience. Use keywords in your content to boost your SEO ranking. Including links to other pages on your site and other credible sources of information also helps to raise your search engine ranking.
7. Call to Action Buttons
Call to Action buttons are the eye catchers of your website. These are usually bright or different coloured buttons, for example a red or orange button saying Buy now, Subscribe, or Contact Us. This is where you want your visitors to navigate to on your site. Always ensure the colors of your buttons don’t conflict with your brand colors.
8. Images
Choose images that are of high quality, clear, and memorable. Your images should be compressed as small as possible to ensure the images don’t affect your website’s load time. Slow load times can cost you valuable visitors. Check Here to see How to speed up your website’s performance
Also ensure your images are either free of copyright or purchased. Istock and GraphicStock provides tons of professional images for purchase.
9. Typography
The biggest downfall of a website is terrible fonts. Making sure your fonts are legible is very crucial. If people have to struggle to read your site’s content, they will most likely leave and not return. It is also recommended not to use all capital letters all the time, since some visitors might feel like you are yelling at them.
You can download free fonts from Google fonts and Font Squirrel. They both have a large collection of fonts for your selection.
10. Easy Navigation
Make your site as simple as possible to browse and navigate through. Visitors come to your site to find information, so ensure it is easy for them to find the relevant information they need. The easier it is to navigate, the higher the chances are of them returning, given you provide what they need. You can also include a site map to aid your visitors with your site’s navigation.
11. Responsive Design (mobile-friendly design)
Responsive design is a fluid like layout of your site’s content, which allows it to stack as your site is viewed or resized on different screen sizes. Developing your website to be viewable across all devices increases your site’s reach to more of your audience.
More than half of the internet’s traffic accounts for mobile device users, so if your site is not mobile-friendly, you could be missing out on a lot of your audience. Check out How to Check Your Website’s Mobile Friendliness.
12. Up to date
Keep your website up-to-date. Websites that are not updated with news, articles or information seem dormant and users probably will not engage with you.
13. Advertising
Do you want to advertise on your site? If yes, make sure your website is suited for ads, but do not overdo with ads all over your page to distract visitors. Too many ads are annoying.
14. Maintenance
How will you edit your site? Will you have a web developer always available or will you edit your site by yourself?
Find out how you would like to maintain your website. If you plan on editing it yourself with wordpress or another cms, you should have some knowledge on how to use the cms or else you could really mess up your site’s design. If you have a web developer, be aware this would include an additional monthly cost but better quality work will be provided.
Know which approach fits you and your business best.
15. Usability
Nothing is more annoying than when a site does not function as it is suppose to. Once the site is complete, go through your site as a visitor and ensure all the links and functions work properly
16. Login System
Would a login system, whether for e-commerce or registration, benefit my site and visitors? Would it improve visitors’ retention or engagement? Discover what the advantages and disadvantages of including a login system to your site would be.
17. Social Media
How does your website connect with available social networks. Enable visitors to easily share content from your site. This encourages visitors to share your content with their networks.
18. Tracking and Analytics
Keeping track of your website’s visitors and hits are important to understanding your audience more.
Set up Google Analytics or Awstats(complicated) with your site to help with stats.
19. Security
Make visitors feel safe on your site. Include a privacy policy on your site to let visitors know how you use and deal with their information, if they input any information. Security here also includes your website. Ensure your site is secure from hackers and your contact forms and comment forms are safe from spam. If you use wordpress or any other cms , use security plugins and difficult passwords with numbers, special characters and caps to increase your site’s protection from invaders.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many key factors to consider when starting your website. There are many other factors that can also be taken into account depending on the type of website you are developing. The #1 thing to take note of after all these factors, is at the end of the day your site represents your company’s identity and voice to increase customers’ satisfaction and retention.