Website Design and Marketing - A Step By Step Guide
First Step - What Should a Website Contain?
To answer this, first look over other websites that compete with you (at least those that cover the same “content topics” that you intend to). You'll need to determine the "content and navigation equation by looking at sites you know about. However, you'll also need to come up with search queries to "see" all your competitors. This is a very important part of the web design process, since you will begin the determination of the keyword phrases you'll need in order to rank high on search engines. If you're a medium sized business, you will likely need need professional help in the keyword phrase determination part of the process. This is also true if you’re going to be competing nationally or internationally.
Once you find your key competitors, look through their website carefully to see what they do well and what they do that's not so good. This is best done with the help of an Internet marketing professional - but you can do it if you take great care. Just remember that this is one of the most important phases in the web design and development process - so don’t take it lightly! If you do, then your website will end up not ranking, not bringing in traffic - and acting as little more than a billboard in the middle of a large desert - with no nearby roads for it to be seen!
The idea here is to get all the information needed to make your website design more user-friendly, more interesting and more rankable. But best of all, you'll end up understanding what your website design should “be” - and you'll be able to come up with the sites main navigation (or "linking" structure) which defines the “most important pages” your website design will need to include). After this has been completed, you actually white-board the layout of the site. From this, a website design and development team can focus on actual web design, development and marketing - including the incorporation of keyword-related content for your pages.
Second Step - Domain Name Selection and Some Internet Marketing Factors
Next, you'll need to decide upon (and register) one or more domain names through a reputable company. We recommend that when you register a domain name that you add the "private registration" option. This hides your identity as the domain owner, and eliminates a big source of email spam. This option costs a little more, but it’s well worth it. Also, when you register your domain name, verify with your web design company whether or not the same company you're working with is going to be your web hosting company. This is important. Because if they're not, then you need to watch out for tricks that lead you into buying hosting and other web services that you otherwise don't need. It's unfortunate that this happens, but it does. And since YOU should be the one signing up for a domain name and for a hosting account (typically on behalf of your company), you'll have all the primary access rights to those accounts. You then will pass these access rights along to your web design company. But by doing things this way, if things go bad between you and your web design company, you can simply change the usernames and passwords of the accounts - to protect your ownership, copyright and trademark rights.
As for domain names, although you "can" use a name that’s just about anything, the first rule is to register a name that’s easy to type and remember. Also, try choosing a domain name that has topic related significance within it. For example, if you work at a New Hampshire auto parts store, you could use www.nhautoparts.com. You don't have to pick a domain name that’s a copy of your companies' name. Why? Well it's been shown that although the “big 3” search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) pay attention to web content primarily, they also look over the characters in your domain name, to see how many characters may relate to the search keywords in your copy. The problem here is that many such domains have already been taken. Also, you never know how much impact this supposed factor has on rankings. So, even if you can’t find this kind of domain name, the web marketing process is not "doomed" - far from it. Remember, there are billions of websites out there that don't have keyword related domain names that rank extremely well!
More importantly, there are over 200 parameters now being used by the major search engines in their website ranking algorithms - and each parameter is weighed differently for ranking (including the domain name variable). So, think of this as a recommendation – not an absolute. The bigger point here is to find every way possible to make the process of ranking high on the major search engines "easier rather than harder". And this means you must have excellent content on each page, along with a process to begin accumulating "non-paid for" in-bound links from other relevant sites.
Third Step - The "Look and Feel" of Your Website Design
At this point, your web design company needs to come up with an actual 'website design' demo for you to critique. You want one that is eye catching, but not cluttered. Most "good" web design companies follow Web 3.0 design guidelines. The guideline have many facets (some good and some bad). However, the overall theme to the guidelines is that function (navigation and content) always over-rides form (overuse of images and technologies like Flash animation). But this absolutely does not mean they can't be used!
The main point here is that too many images, videos, or Flash animations on a page will slow down its loading time (which is another factor in web page ranking). In addition, since it’s impossible for any search engine to read text that's embedded within a graphic - or within a Flash animation - you must place as few of your keywords in these types of files as possible.
Next, you must come up with content for all the pages you need. You can have a web design and marketing company do "all of this" for you (and yes, because it takes time, it will cost you). However, it may be necessary if you don't have time and you want to rank high as soon as you can. But to save time and money anyway, look for text that you may already have (like that which is found in brochures, flyers and other internal documents). If you can find the original source files, and copy and paste them into various word documents, then you and/or a web design and marketing company can work faster. You also should plan to obtain customer testimonials (5 and 10 initially should be fine). Finally, you'll need logo files, photos, downloadable files (like pdf’s) and any audio/video files that you think can provide important and unique information to visitors.
Some content like this can be provided “after” the design process has commenced. However, it's much more efficient and cost effective to have all content ready in advance. If you have to develop significant amounts of content from scratch, than you will hold up the web design phase at some point.
As a side note, to really know what visitors are doing on a given page - and to ensure the best possible user experience - you can use advanced website analytical design services based on eye-tracking, mouse-tracking, click-tracking and scroll-mapping. All of these are spin-offs of what was once simply called 'heat mapping". However, they're far more informative than the original technology. The idea f doing this to any site or site page, is to ensure that graphic design elements and text elements are being used (and positioned) optimally. If they're not, then most people will leave a site quickly - not a good thing.
Next, you will likely revisit search engine related terms. For example, you should continue to test search results obtained using variants of the keywords you already have tried. This could affect initial design and navigational intentions, but this isn't bad. Also, during this portion of the web design process, if you’re using a web design and marketing company, they should make your “growing website” viewable through a temporary web address that they provide you.
Eventually, you'll be presented with an initial website design. If you like it, you can then move forward with the rest of the site. In the end, you will review the site fully and be asked for finally acceptance. To approve the site, you must check all the links and text 9for misspelling especially), and then give the “okay” for the site to go “live”. When it does go “live”, you will see the same site. However, it will be viewable by typing your domain name into your browser. But first, to take make your website “live on the web” you'll need a hosting company account.
Step 4 - Website and E-mail Hosting
If this wasn't done initially, then you'll now need to establish an account with a hosting company. Such an account enables your web pages to be "uploaded" onto special server computers. These server computers are connected to the Internet directly - close to its “main hub”. The closer a hosting company is to the main hub, generally the better your site will rank. Although you can’t actually determine this easily, a hosting companies’ history of good service and moderate price is a good indication. Hosting accounts not only enable you to view your website over the web, they also enable you to establish email accounts that utilize your domain name after the @ symbol. They also offer web-mail accounts and other important features.
NOTE: There can be HUGE differences in the services and costs offered by hosting companies. Thus, it’s VERY important to pick a good one. It’s also a good idea to setup monthly payment for services; so you won’t be stuck with a big bill should you need to find another hosting company for your site. Good “shared” hosting accounts (on a UNIX server) typically cost from $6.00 to $25.00 per month. Windows shared, virtually dedicated and dedicated hosting accounts are much more expensive and are generally unnecessary for most users.
Step 5 - Launching of Your Website
Once your web design is ready-to-go, it will finally be able to become live on the web. To do this, your domain name is "pointing" to a designated set of "nameservers" that are part of your hosting company account. Once this is done, it takes anywhere from 6-72 hours before you can view your website from a browser using your domain name. One thing is for sure; going "live" is a great feeling – whether it’s your first time, or your 200th!
Finally, depending upon the scope and goals of your project, you can begin focusing on the process of ranking and building brand awareness – through the major search engines and through "community building" (like through blogs and social media sites). If you have a search engine marketing optimization arrangement, then they should be able to provide marketing services aimed at making your website appear in the top 10 (or higher) on the free "search engine results pages" (called SERP's). This can take several months though (typically 2-6) - depending upon the number of competitors that exist in your market niche, and/or whether or not you are simply re-launching a new site that's had its own domain name for some time. In the latter case, changes in coding and text can result in better search results in weeks rather than months.
Some Reminders and Additional Comments:
1. Develop a simple, user friendly, easy to follow navigation scheme for your website - and include great content.
2. Listen to your web designers and Internet marketing specialists about how to develop your website for a “good look and feel” while also making it “search engine friendly". If you don't do this, then you'll likely NEVER achieve "a good user experience" (thus you'll lose good traffic), high organic search engine rankings on the major search engines. This, of course, would be a complete waste of time, effort and money.
3. At the very least, track your website traffic using the analysis tools provided by your hosting company (usually found on their control panel). Not only will you learn about "hits" and “visits”, you'll also learn a little bit about "how" people use your site. In addition, more complex means include the use of web analytics. This software can be quite complex, but it enables you to see what keyword phrases were used by visitors to your website as well as to setup and track marketing campaign "channels - as well as how well a purchasing funnel is working on an e-commerce site. Analytic reports can also be provided by experienced web design and marketing companies.
4. If you will have a large website, consider including a “site search” to help people find the information they really want to see – and more rapidly.
5. Make sure that at least you have one contact form on a page. It enables users to input data into "fields" that you define - and this information is sent to you in a formatted email. Sometimes it's a good idea to locate just the form fields on several pages throughout your site (for immediate visitor access).
6. Design your website so that it looks essentially identical in ALL relatively recent web browsers. This is too often overlooked during the web design process!
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