Posted by & filed under Codastar News, Uncategorised.

When thinking about building your new website there are a few difficult decisions to be made. The first one is whether you build it yourself, or hire a professional like a web agency or designer. Hiring a professional is of course the safest way to getting a quality website that generate business. However,  for a sole trader just starting out, the budget needed may not be available. Building a website from scratch on your own seems like a pretty daunting task at first but it doesn’t have to be.

There are a few steps you can take to make the process more manageable for yourself. While you do start at a disadvantage due to lack of knowledge and experience in making a website, you can learn some valuable things and use valuable tools to get a great start on your website.

You need a plan

Preparation is key when building your website. It may be tempting to rush into designing and trying to get something up and running but you need to do a bit of work before you get there. You need to know what you want your website to do and what you want from it. Before you start designing and creating content for your site you need a solid base.

A great way to plan your website out would be to make a blueprint. Doing this allows you to make changes to the plan easily if something needs to change. It also gives you a good structure to follow, ensuring you don’t miss anything out. Set goals for your website and give yourself a clear picture of where you want to be.

Course-screenshot

Do your Research

A lot of the work that goes into making a website is research. There are a few areas that should be of interest to you.

Competition

In order to have a successful website, you have to look at your competition. Looking at a website selling the same, or similar, products to you is a great step to take. Check the standards of their websites so you know where yours needs to be. You can learn a lot from investigating their marketing strategies and CTA’’s.

Studying competitors websites gives you insights into essential parts of a working website. While you’re researching make sure you look at each aspect of the websites including their appearance, how easy it is to use/navigate around and their marketing techniques used. Looking at your competition is an essential step to making a successful website as it gives you an idea of what standard your website should be.

User Experience

Making your website easy to navigate around is crucial when building your website. You want users to know where to go and how to get there. It’s important users are able to get from one place to another on your website with ease. This applies to desktop, mobile and tablet. Many people work very hard on their site for a desktop user but are lacking when it comes to mobile or tablet use.

When building your website you should ensure your content is laid out in a way that is appropriate for the user. For example, condensing your content and using a read more option could be highly beneficial for you and your users. This allows users to find content faster as they don’t have to scroll through pages of information and content that’s irrelevant to them.

Marketing Techniques

If you’re not focusing on marketing it is highly unlikely you’ll generate many sales through your website. Getting your website up and running is only part of the work that needs to be done. People won’t just automatically find your site, in order to gain visitors you need to use marketing techniques.

Having a good knowledge of online marketing is key. It requires research, unfortunately many sole  traders building websites don’t have experience in online marketing. Looking at what your competition is doing would be a great start to give you some ideas. If you study techniques, do good research and educate yourself enough you could learn and implement some great marketing techniques.

We’ve built a full, easy to follow course teaching you how to create a successful website. The course takes you through the whole process of building a website as well as teaches you techniques you need to know. Throughout the course you’ll gain essential knowledge you need to build your website. You can access it here: www.fuzzbooster.com

Video-picture-01

As featured in

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *