Today we are going to look at What is a website, why you need a website and things you need to consider before building a website. This will benefit you no matter if you are building your own site or if you are getting a professional to build your site for you.  If you can have these things sorted before starting it will make the process a whole lot easier.

What is a website?

In technical terms a website is just a whole lot of pages (like a word document) that are linked together and can be viewed over the internet.  The pages are stored in files (just like your computer files) and those files are stored on a big computer hard drive called a server. That server is managed and owned by a Hosting company.  When someone types in your website address (which is your domain name) they will be taken to where your website is stored and can view all of your web pages.

What is a website in terms of marketing.  Think of your website as a long pitch. You have probably got a 30 second elevator pitch, hopefully, well your website is the long version of that pitch.  On your website you need to be telling your customer what problem you are solving for them, how you are going to solve it for them and why you are the one to solve it for them. You are helping them understand who you are, what you value and if they can trust you.

Why do you need a website?

In this Digital age your customer expects it. Everyone is online, mostly on their mobile phones so you also need to be there. Think about you yourself as a customer, when you are looking at purchasing a product or service, what is the first thing you do?  Google it, maybe then go on Facebook to find it and ultimately you will end up at someone’s website to find out more to determine if it is what you want, if it solves your problems or fulfills your needs, if aligns with your values and if it is worth you parting with your money.  Take for example, Ross my Hubby. Last week our modem died, so he jumped onto google, researched products that could solve his problem, then once he found the product he searched for businesses in Toowoomba that sold that product. If a business didn’t have a website he went and found a business that had a website so he could see if they had that product, got their address then went out and bought from that business.

Another awesome thing about a website is it’s not restricted to business hours, so people can be searching online at all times of the day and night and can find out more about your business and service, without you having to answer a phone or respond to an email. And if you have an online store you can make money in your sleep. 

Things you need to consider before you build or get a website built.

1. The first thing you need is a business model. So who is your customer, what problem are you solving for them, is this really a problem and how are you going to make money from it. I have a lot of clients who come to me and they don’t know who their customer is. If you don’t know who your customer is and I mean really understand who they are, it makes it very hard not just build a business, but also makes it hard to build a brand and build a website.  There are some great tools you can use to figure your business model and work out your target customer such as business model canvas and customer avatar creation. You do not want to spend money or time building a website until you figure this out first.

2. You need to have a business name and potentially an ABN. If you want an Australian Extension as your domain name eg. Retrohex.com.au you will need to have an Australian Business Number. Do some brain dumping, also use tools like  Name checker to see if available across all platforms, domains, socials etc

3. You need to create a brand. What do I mean by a brand? In it’s simplest form a brand is all about being consistent with what your company values are or what I like to break it down into as the double V’s. Your Voice and your Visual. The brand voice is everything you say, everything that you write and everything that you do. How you make your customer feel, what values are your portraying.  The Visuals are how you look, your logo, your colour pallete, your fonts, illustrations everything visual. This is my visual brand that I created and something you can create using an online tool like Canva.com. How do you create a Brand? Research other brands that your target customer loves and get inspiration from them, what are their values, how do they speak, what sort of design do they have?.   Research what your competitors are doing and decide if you want to be similar or if you want to be different. The main thing with a brand is that your Values need to be consistent across everything, from when you meet people to your social media accounts to your website and beyond.  People buy a product or use a service because the brand aligns with their own values.

Think of Apple. People don’t buy Apple products because they are superior products, no Microsoft make much better laptops, people buy Apple because of what they stand for, their values. Everyone has values and values they want people to perceive they have, so when you buy an apple brand you are saying to your friends that you are cool and you go against the status quo.  So why do you need to have your brand worked out before building a website?  When you build a website you are going to be creating up to 10 pages or more and you need to know how you are going to speak and say, what font is and colours you are going to use, you are going to add your logo and imagery.  If you don’t know these things, building a website will be a nightmare and it won’t be consistent.  As I mentioned before there is an awesome online design tool called Canva.com that can help you create a visual brand your logo, colours and fonts.

4. The next thing you need to consider is what you actually want to put on your website. The simplest way to figure this out is to think about what you want your customer to know when they land on your website and ultimately what you want them to do.  For example, you want them to know what problem you are solving, how you are the one to solve it, gain some trust and ultimately purchase the product straight from you site.  So in this case you would need to explain the problem so that it relates to your customer, have an about section to talk about what the product is and how it solves this problem, some testimonials on others who have bought the product and how it helped them and a shop so that they can purchase the product. You might also want to add a FAQ section so any questions they may have they can look up the answers before having to contact you for further information. You would have a contact section/form so they can contact you directly. You may want a video showing how the product is used and how it solves a problem. Depending on what your business offers products or services will depend on what you need to have on your site.  So I want us to take some time now, for you to think about what you need on the site and write it down to get you started.   Also consider this….. Once you have figured out everything you need on your site, you can then draw out each page and what you want on each page, this is called a Wireframe. It doesn’t need to be fancy but it will help you get your head around how to lay out your pages and if someone else is going to build it this is something they do anyway so it makes life a whole lot easier if you know what you want.

5. The last thing you need consider is what platform you are going to use to build your site. Understanding how much time you have, your budget and your skill level is important is figuring this out. Also how much time you will have moving forward once the site is built. Do you have time to maintain it, update images, monitor security etc.

These are some of the most popular website building platforms

Weebly

Square Space

Wix

Shopify

WordPress

I’m going to Focus on the bottom 3 because Weebly and SqaureSpace are similar to Wix.

Wix

Wix is great platform to use if you want to build a simple information site where visitors can learn about what you do and contact you. It is fairly affordable and has hundreds of layouts you can use.  For basic plan it’s about $280 per year. It is hosted by Wix so you don’t have to worry about hosting or security, they look after that for you. That does not mean that it can’t get hacked, so making sure you keep up security practices like using strong passwords and different passwords etc. There is a free version but there is Wix advertising all over it and your can’t use your own domain name.

Shopify

Shopify is a great platform if you just need an online shop.  It is becoming one of the most popular sites for building ecommerce sites. It is fairly simple to use and there are lots of layouts you can choose from. It is hosted by Shopify so you don’t have to worry about hosting or security they look after that. Again making sure you still play your part in being secure. However it is one of the more expensive options, pricing from $500-$1000 per year.

WordPress

WordPress is an allrounder so it is great for building information sites and eccomerce sites. It was started as a blogging platform so is one of the best platforms around for Blogging and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Unlike the other two, you have to get a host and maintain it. It is the most affordable, about $150 a year which you are paying for your own hosting (Blue Host is a great WordPress Theme) and domain name plus if you purchase a theme, a good theme is about $100.  I use a great Theme called The Divi Theme which makes it easy to build out WordPress Websites.

Out of the three WordPress is probably the biggest learning curve but most affordable, followed by Shopify then Wix. Shopify is the most expensive but is perfect to get started quickly with ecommerce

If you want to learn how to build your own WordPress Website I have a 20min Vlog showing you the steps and tools I use to build out WordPress sites for my clients, you can check it out here.

Remember like anything in life, websites take time to plan and build so set aside at least a day a week to plan and build it out, good luck folks.

Leisa