5 Things to Consider When Getting a Website
OK, so you know you need a website, but how do you select the right provider for you? In this post we will outline a few considerations you should bear in mind while searching for a website provider and why Increase The Wedge will be the right choice for you.
Here are 5 of the key factors to consider:
- Security
- Budget
- Design
- Updates
- SEO
Security
Having a website that looks good and is user friendly is great, however, if the proper security measures are not in place it is pointless. An area which is often overlooked by other designers is, maintaining and operating a secure system requires a fair amount of knowledge, time and work. This maintenance is essential, as your website could become a target for hackers. For example, on WordPress, you must make sure that all plugins and themes are updated regularly to minimise the risk of your website being hacked. If your website is not secure and is hacked, this could result in you losing your website all together. Many businesses trade online using e-commerce websites and to lose this function could have a detrimental effect on the lively-hood. Security is at the top of our list because at Increase The Wedge we have a saying “To be sure, be secure “.
Budget
Setting an appropriate budget for your website build can be a good idea as here at Increase The Wedge we work with businesses of all budgets. We work with clients to create the functionality, look and feel of the website whilst staying inside the budget set. Below are some key points to consider, which Increase The Wedge offer with all services:
- Where will be your site hosted? Will you have a solid, professional hosting or does your provider use a cheaper alternative?
- Are site backups performed regularly?
- Does your provider have the skills to act on unexpected events/security breach? Is the provider professionally organised to deal with emergencies?
- Will your site have a professional and functional design? This is different from just “looking good”
- Who will care about updates? Is this you? Which tools will your provider give you to do that? Or will the contents be managed by your provider? Are there additional costs for this?
- Is your provider available for real time support? How can you get in touch? What is the average response time? What is the quality of the support you get? Can you contact your provider in case of emergencies? Can they always deliver or do they only have some basic skills?
A website should always be considered as a project and for it to be successful project you want to team up with the right people, at Increase The Wedge we have the right people.
Design
If your goal is to have a dynamically designed, stunning looking website, which gives a great and competitive online presence then you should definitely use the professionals, it’s a worth while investment to have a strong online presence. If you run a purely online business, say an online shop then great graphics could have a dramatic impact on sales. In this case your investment may be higher. If however you are using your website as a presence or to provide contact details etc. Then all you may need is a “business card” website, where you contact information is posted. In this case the cost will be lower. The key factor for the design of your websiteboils down to the previously mentioned budget.. The more you are willing to invest in the design, the more effective it will be.
Updates
Do not take for granted that your pages contents will be easy to edit with no technical knowledge. If you want to make frequent updates to your website by yourself, you will need a website with an administrative back end where you can login and edit contents with ease. You do not want to be messing around with FTP to update your site, even if you are skilled and could do it. In the long run, a Content Management System (CMS) is a far better platform to have your website built on as it allows you to update content and images easily. Thousands of businesses today are using a CMS platform for their website design, WordPress now powers over a quarter of the internet!
SEO
Your new website looks amazing but nobody is seeing it.. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can help your business rank higher in Google. If your website never shows up in search engines results, whatever the keywords, then you are on the good path for irrelevance. For your site to have an impact and be meaningful, you need visitors, and in normal situations most of them will come from search engines. How many times daily do you open your favorite search engine, in search of something you need to know or are looking for? On average Google has 3.5 Billion searches everyday, equating to a whopping 1.2 Trillion average searches every year. Of course there are several other search engines such as Yahoo, Bing etc. However Google receives almost 80% of all internet traffic, so this is where you want your business to be appearing. A decent position means the first page of results, anything below this have a poor chance of being visited as often visitors will only take the results of the first page as it can appear as a trusted authority due to it’s position in the results. You should be aware this is a very important aspect to consider while planning and building a new website. It’s vital you hire a provider who is very aware of the importance of SEO. With the growth of the internet, SEO has become a science on it’s own in the last 10 years. Increase The Wedge are experts in SEO so get in touch if your potential customers are going elsewhere online.