Website Planning
Website planning may sound difficult and it can be depending on how much you want on it and what all you want it to be and the goals you have for it but that is what I am here for and something to keep in mind is that a website can be organic it can grow and expand and develop to your needs and the needs of your viewers. You can start with a basic site and over time depending on your budget add to it. Having one final website that does not change can get boring for your viewers. Changing up content adding new articles will help it to evolve.
First, you want to think of the key purposes of your site. Obviously, it is to get people to know who you are and what you are offering and to grow your business. Are you an e-commerce site this is a site they sell products on the site where someone clicks and buys the product on your site. Then there are the Informational sites. This is where you offer a service or have a brick and mortar business and you want to bring more customers to you. This is a place to showcase what you do or what you sell.
How can this site help you?
Do you get a lot of phone calls or emails about your product or service that a website can answer for you thus lighting your workload so rather than having calls come it asking questions only to have the person say “Oh ok it’s not what I was looking for” but have more calls with customers saying I want to buy that or when can I get an appointment. This frees you up to get more work done.
What pages do you want on your site and what content do you have for it and what content you need for it. Sometimes this may be a problem if you are not a very good writer or you don’t take good enough photos. You may need to consider a hiring a copywriter or a photographer or better yet a marketing company who like a contractor usually works with an in-house or freelance team. However, those are some expensive options. If your budget does not allow for that just finding a web designer who does it can be an affordable solution.
I am one of those web designers that can handle many of the client’s needs from designing a logo to taking product
and services photos to or just finding the fitting open source or low-cost photos for a client’s website. I am also able to take the clients information and write it in a way that reads well. I have found with clients is that they don’t know what to write and what to put on their website so the best thing to do simply make list. List everything you do, List the materials, locations, cost, time frames, availability, think about what questions clients ask you and what your answers are. Tell them who they are and why you are their best choice and also why you are unique or better than the rest. I can take this information and assemble it and put where it needs to go.
Also, you’ll need a domain and a hosting service. Most Web Designers can assist in that and most designers like myself are able to host your website. But It’s good to register your own domain and to do it now so that no one else gets it before you. An important tip if you do a domain search be prepared to buy it as soon as you find it available as it might not be the next day this happens a lot. Register the domain right away even if you are not ready to build a website.