Do you want to know how to create a website? Here are the steps you need to take to create a website.

Step 1: Strategy and Goals: Yes, start with your strategy. What is it you want to achieve with your website. Having a clear strategy and goals will support your website development. You need to think about

• who is your ideal client?
• what will your message be?
• what products and services do you want to highlight?
• how will convert visitors into paying customers?
• what makes your business unique?
• will you update your website with new information?
• what online marketing will you be doing?
• how will you get traffic to your website?
• what is your brand colors?
• what images best link to your branding?

Getting very specific about your strategy and goals will help you with creating your website.

Step 2: Content: The internet is about information. This information is the content on your website. Content is not only the words but include images, video, sound and documents.

A critical element is your menu design. What will be added to your main menu on your website. This typically includes:

• Home
• Products / Services (one for each)
• About Us
• Blog
• Contact Us

We do suggest having dedicate pages for products and services. This helps with keywords and traffic.

Do people still visit about us? Yes they do. They want to know who you are. Also be clear about your contact us page. For each you will need have wording and images.

Your home page is usually the most visited page on your website. You need to have something on your homepage that makes people stay. The longer people stay on your website the better the chance of getting a lead or making a sale.

Step 3: Platform: There are thousands of options here. We will look at the 3 biggest options you can choose from:

• Static Page: This is a page built using an tool and html code. Usually it is fast; and do not need updates. However, it is extremely difficult to update. Adding a link to your menu means updating all pages individually. It is easy for a link to get broken.
• Online Website Builders: There are many builders to choose from. Some work better than others. It is easy to update and maintain. You are limited to the functionality provided by the builder. Usually there is a monthly fee involved in making your website live on the internet.
• Content Management System: A content management system like WordPress or Joomla allows you to update your website yourself. It is easy to start. There are thousands of extensions which will give you added functionality. Backups and updates are important for the health of your website.

Step 4: Development: Once you have selected your platform and have content ready it is time to start the development.

We typically use a preset mobile friendly template. This helps speed up the development and keeps costs down.

The template is selected and installed in a development area. From there content is added. If more functionality is needed this is also added to the development.

Step 5: Test: Before going live with your website; test it. Especially test the links. Also; if you have added functionality test that it works. For instance if you have an e-commerce website test that you are able to make a purchase.

Testing gives you the confidence that your website is working the way it should.

Step 6: Go live: Exciting times! Your website is now live on the internet. Many times we also launch a campaign to drive traffic to the new website. This can be on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and email marketing.

Getting feedback from your visitors and tracking usage on your website will help you improve your website over time.

Step 7: Backups and Updates: Ensure you have a working backup of your website. Nothing worse than browsing to your website and seeing an error that your website is not working. This could happen. Everyday there are thousands of websites that break. This could be a server issue, an update gone wrong, or someone who purposefully decided to break your website.