5 Things You Must Do BEFORE Starting to Build a Business Website

Be in-the-know before you go

If you’re gearing up to build a business website for the first time, you’re probably extremely excited to get started - and finished, so you can better communicate with your target audience and sell. But, before you jump the gun, there are a few things you have to consider.  

Let me tell you why.

Planning is everything. If you take some time, do a little (or a lot) of research, and layout your website’s plans, you are essentially taking out a lot of the guesswork involved in your website’s design, development and, ultimately, success. If you let your excitement get the best of you and put up a site willy-nilly, the time, effort and money you spend during this process, could wind up going straight down the drain, simply because you don’t actually know what works for businesses like yours, in the digital age.

To ensure you’re optimally in-the-know before you go ahead with your business website building endeavors, here’s a handy step-by-step preparation guide. You’re welcome.

Step 1 - Determine the aim of your website

Before you can set up a business website, you’ll need to figure out which goals it will seek to accomplish. Will your website serve as an online store for products and/or services? Will it be used to raise awareness vis-a-vis your business and encourage them to contact you for more information or a consult? Will it become a hub for engagement content or some other creative work? The aim you wish to achieve by building your business website will dictate how you design it, the type of content you publish on it, and how you market it, to get target audience members viewing the site, and converting.

Step 2 - Establish your brand’s USP

What is your brand’s unique selling point (USP)? What sets your business apart from the competition, and motivates target audience members to select your offering over theirs? To answer these questions, you’re going to have to take a deep dive into your target audience - AND your competition. Learn what similar offerings are already on the market, how they’re similar or different from yours, as well as who your target audience is, what they’re interested in and why they are or aren’t buying from your competitors. Then, take all this information into consideration and position your offering to respond to existing market voids and satisfy customers’ needs better than others are already doing. A focus on your USP will be your business website’s key differentiating factor; what will make it stand out from the pack and encourage lead generation, engagement, conversions, and retention.

Step 3 - Perfect your branding

What statement do you want your business website to make? What feeling should it give off? Are you a sleek, innovative, hi-tech start-up, a fresh, natural cosmetics supplier, or a loud-and-proud PR firm? Creating a branding strategy for your website is critical to ensuring your target audience understands exactly what your business culture is, what you stand for, and what experience YOU want THEM to have with your brand. As such, your color scheme, fonts, logos, and other brand language and image elements should be decided upon before you start designing your site.

Not sure where to start? Digital Girl is highly knowledgeable and experienced in everything branding. We’re more than happy to help you perfect your branding, so your website reflects the business of your dreams.

Step 4 - Prepare your images

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. As such, it’s a good idea to integrate (great) pictures throughout your business website. Decide the kinds of images you would like to see on your business website and how many per page. Then, take professional headshots and photos, or collect and organize high-quality images from other sources (taken by amateur photographers, stock photos, etc.), and get them ready in a dedicated online folder, for easy uploading. This will save you lots of time and energy later on.

Step 5 - Create a Pinterest board to support your design vision

Finally, before turning over the reins to your website designer, or starting the design process yourself, it is extremely helpful to create a vision board containing website designs that you like and that speak to your target audience. Why? First off, it will help focus on the kind of design style you want, and second, it will help you avoid copying the competition, while still keeping to the type of tone your industry tends to set (to engage with target audience members). You can easily create a vision board on Pinterest, thanks to its extreme accessibility to websites and other images online.

Bottom line

Properly preparing yourself and your assets for website design is the key to your business site’s ultimate success. Following the five steps mentioned above and contacting Digital Girl for any help, you may need along the way can ensure your new business website is designed to shine.

For more information, [email protected]