Websites 101
WEBSITES 101
The basics when it comes to websites
As the years progress, more and more small businesses are joining the online world as a partial or complete source of income. To many, technology alone is an entirely new world. Combine that with setting up and maintaining a website, and the idea of having a website may seem daunting.
Read below to learn the basics of creating and maintaining your own website.
The core components:
While websites vary greatly in design, many have the same core components.
1. The “home page,” where customers go initially.
2. The “contact page,” where they can either find your address and phone number or submit an online request.
3. The “about us page,” where you tell potential customers a little about yourself or your business.
4. Then you may also have one page of your services or thousands of pages worth of merchandise, depending on your business.
What’s the overall process?
Step #1: Choose the “look” of the site, which includes the color scheme, general layout of the site as well as any pictures which you may want included on the site.
Step #2: The next step is to determine what you would like on each page, including the general wording and images as well as what to zero in on.
Step #3: Adjust the wording for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes.
Once the site is developed, how are people going to find your site?
Many people think that just having a site brings instant success, but many times that is not the case. You need to get people to your site, which leads us to the next step…
How do you get people to come to your site?
While the best approach(es) vary based upon your line of business, here are some generally used approaches:
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) – This is when you pay the large search engines money every time someone clicks on your ad. Prices vary based on location time and keywords.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Make sure your site is constantly being optimized for the major search engines to find and categorize your website. This may include keywords, tags and blogging.
Social Marketing – In addition to, or instead of, paying for ads and marketing experts for print ads, you can do the same on the social networks. By getting out there and letting people see you exist on the various social media outlets (with links to your site) you can increase the amount of clicks to your site – which will hopefully translate into sales.
Social Engagement – Instead of pushing out data to the social networks, some people prefer to engage their customers and potential customers with questions and chats to allow for a human interaction.
Want to see how your doing?
With Google Analytics you can see many different angles of your site. Some of the items you can see and analyze are:
– How many people come to your site at any given time
– Where people are coming from
– Which pages they are clicking on (and in what order)
– Which keywords people are using to find your site
In conclusion…
Whether we are starting a new site or updating an existing site, the first questions we ask are: what are you looking to accomplish, what type of site do you want (simple informal or flashy shopping cart) and what are some websites you have seen which you really like or dislike.
Once we understand where you are coming from and what you are looking to do, everything else falls into place!
