People often decide on a whim that they want to build a website. They are not sure why or what its purpose will be, they just know that they want a website because they think there is scope to make some money from it and to share their experiences or passions with the world. In this regard they are correct, a website is able to do these things, but they are also a little naive if they think that it is going to be easy or that there won’t be plenty of hard work and capital outlay involved. A website needs to be planned and project managed strategically and with thought. It isn’t something haphazard that will just grow organically – and if that is what happens it will almost certainly be a shamble. With this in mind, here are a few simple building blocks that you should look to have in place if when you decide to make your foray online.
A good address
A website needs an address. It needs to be something relevant and ideally it shouldn’t be complicated. The last thing that you want to be doing is giving out a URL that is too long or too filled with weird characters. Keep it simple. If you do that you will make your life a whole lot easier. Also be aware that there are plenty of different domains that you can choose from. Don’t be distracted by something fancy or seemingly clever. Stick to the tried and tested things like dotcom or a country code that is relevant. You won’t be helping yourself if you end up with an obscure domain.
Don’t fall over
A website that is badly coded or which doesn’t have enough server capacity to cater for the traffic that it gets will simply fall over in peak periods. If you anticipate generating some reasonable numbers, you will want to identify the best web hosting in Australia and sign a deal with them. This will almost certainly be a cloud-based solution, and probably one that is scalable as well. Finding a partner who will charge you a basic retainer for usage and then afford you the opportunity to increase capacity in eth event of big numbers will be important to ensuring your stability and growth.
Structured behind the scenes
Before you build a site, you need to conceptualise it from the ground up. You need to factor in things like metadata and sitemaps so that the site is properly optimised from the outset for search engine optimisation. It also needs to be coded in line with industry best practices. In this regard it is often a good idea to use a generic system like WordPress which is able to take care of lots of these elements for you. You almost certainly don’t need to get a bespoke website developed. That will come at great cost and will require maintenance and repeat investment going forward.
What is your purpose
As with any business, if you don’t know what your purpose is and who you are making it for, then you will fail. Spend time before you start to build or create content to ask important questions. You cannot score a goal if you don’t know where the goalposts are. So, know the key objectives and KPIs to ensure that you have something to aim for. Without that you will very quickly lose momentum.
