5 Things to Think About When Planning a Website for Your Business

What is the goal of your website?

Is it going to be an online showroom, an online store, or a way to connect with your customers better. This will affect many of the decisions about how the site will be built. First it will directly affect the type of design elements and technologies that are going to be used. This will also come up when considering many areas such as security, special features, photography needs, and almost every decision that you make.

What do you want the site to look like?

It’s a good idea to look around at what other people are doing. Even better, see what your competitors are doing. You can figure out if there are things you like and want to incorporate into your site, or how your site can look different. This will help you later too if you hire somebody else to assist with designing your website, discuss these examples to provide a clear picture of what you want.

How are you going to connect with your audience through the site?

Here you want to start thinking about extra features for the site. Things like videos, flash animation and social media feeds are great ways to enhance the engagement of your audience. Having an array of features on the site that are updated on a regular basis will keep customers coming back.

How do your customers search for your product/service?

Search engines are the easiest way for customers to find exactly the service or product they need. People usually search using keywords, including these keywords and phrases into website text could boost your ranking through it’s relevance to the search. Links back to your site could also give you a boost as well. This is all part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) including many strategies and analytic tools to track and measure the effectiveness of each.

Can I do this on my own?

This is a very difficult decision. The ease, convenience, and low cost of many online tools leads people to think its an easy one. You could do it all yourself but will you have the best website for your needs, or will you have the best one for your skill level. Don’t let your budget or your ego get in the way from seeking help. You can always keep involved in many ways so you still have hand in every aspect of your business but hiring a new employee or contracting a professional webmaster might mean the difference between a website that hurts or helps your online image.

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