You’ve heard the old-age adage and now you want to put it to the test. There are over 2 billion websites on the internet, and standing apart can be tricky. If you’re new, the lingo alone can be tricky. SEO, hosting, content strategy, oh my! The question is how do you turn a brand-new website into a successful one? By following these tips, of course!
It’s All in the Name
One of the most important things you’re ever going to do when it comes to a website is pick its name. Why? Because it’s what your customers are going to remember — or forget. You don’t have to be a witty genius to come up with a name that sticks in someone’s head. However, you do want to come up with a site name that is memorable.
Think about the most common websites you visit. How do you remember their names (and no, looking at your browser history doesn’t count)? It’s probably because it’s catchy. Sometimes, it’s not possible to use your company name, or maybe the company name isn’t catchy enough so you rely on a slogan. Think about this before you buy the domain. Just be careful not to choose something that has nothing at all to do with your company or the service you’re offering.
Another key is to keep the name short and choose a .com extension, if possible because it’s the easiest for people to remember.
Find Reliable and Adequate Hosting
The last thing you want to do is publish and promote your website only to find out that the hosting service you signed up for isn’t reliable. There are a variety of host problems you can run into such as:
- Crashes with too much traffic
- Unplanned outages
- Unreliable or nonexistent support
- Lack of scalability
- Lack of features
Before you choose a company to host your site, make sure they have a good rating. You can find ratings on almost any service, and if you can’t find a particular company, take that as a sign they may not be as established as you hoped. There are many review sites dedicated to comparing hosting sites so you can view many at a glance.
Once you’ve chosen your host, make sure you choose an adequate plan. If you plan to grow your business to the point where you’ll have thousands of unique visitors per day, a basic, non-paid plan won’t support these goals. While you can always upgrade as you grow, choosing the plan that fits your goals, to begin with, will give you far fewer headaches in the long run.
Choose a Platform
What’s a platform, you ask? It’s the company that’s going to install and put your website out there for everyone to see. For some people, this is the same as the hosting company. For others, they may choose to host on popular platforms, such as WordPress, for example.
Make sure you choose something with a user-friendly interface. If you don’t have a lot of experience with the backend of websites, you’ll want something that you can easily pick up and implement, otherwise, you’ll be walking away in frustration more times than you can count.
Develop a Content Strategy
A content strategy is important because it’s what draws traffic to your website. The content on your pages should be SEO-rich, meaning it should be full of keywords and terms your customers would use to find the services or products you offer. However, there is such a thing as too many keywords. Don’t stuff your content, because it can have the opposite effect. Google and other search engines could flag your site as spam — and good luck recovering from that.
What kind of content do you need? A full homepage that introduces your company, for one. And no matter what type of site you have, a blog is a valuable tool that so many people discount. Even if you have to hire a freelancer or company to create the content for you, make sure you have one.
Evaluate Your Analytics
If you don’t know what analytics are, you should make it a point to learn quickly. These statistics show you how successful your website is. It looks at specs such as how many unique visitors you receive on a given day, week and month. It also evaluates landing page conversions, so you can see which percentage of customers made a purchase or requested more information.
While there’s a lot that goes into making a website successful, it’s a lot easier once you know what you’re doing. If you follow this advice, once you’re up and running, don’t be surprised if people ask your opinion on getting their own website set up.
Website design stock photo by Andrey Suslov/Shutterstock
