A simple guide to creating a great website

As a startup, a website should be at the very top of your marketing to-do list.

Your website should be your single most visible customer touch point and the main mechanism through which you communicate with customers, as well as nurture and convert leads. Thankfully, we live in a world where technology makes it possible to create your own website without paying tens of thousands of dollars. There are a number of tools freely available that allow you to create a site efficiently, cost-effectively, and by yourself! Here’s how to do it:

  • Planning Before you get started, you have to figure out what you want your site to accomplish. Visit websites you feel do a good job of communicating ideas and write down the features you like and make a note of the aesthetics that appeal to you and why. Your competitors’ sites can be a great resource in this process. By taking a careful inventory of the sorts of things your competitors’ websites do, you’ll be able to gather ideas for content while making sure your site still has its own unique branding. Above all, avoid turning your site into this.
  • Hosting For startups with a bit of coding experience (or for those willing to put in some sweat equity and learn – the basics aren’t tough), a self-hosted site opens up a world of possibilities unavailable with free hosting. WordPress.org is by far the most popular option and is a great option for those who aren’t coding wizards (our site is a self-hosted WordPress.org site). Check out hosting providers that provide cost-effective hosting services and ‘One-Click WordPress Installation’, like DreamHost or BlueHost. One-Click Installation will save you time and stress and get you building out your site (the fun part) a lot quicker.
  • Templates If you choose to go the route of a self-hosted site, using a template is a must if you’re not Mark Zuckerberg. There are a number of online marketplaces with templates for sale at reasonable prices, and it’s amazing what $50 can get you on forums like themeforest. Templates are great because they provide the ‘bones’ of your site while still offering a huge number of custom options with regards to colours, menus, sidebars, etc.
  • Media Great sites need great multimedia, regardless of what your business does. Find great photos, videos, infographics, and more that you can use on your homepage and throughout your site to draw people in and start gathering leads. Royalty-free, public domain images are freely available at sites like stock.xchng for those companies that don’t yet have their own media to use.
  • Copywriting & SEO All of the above steps are a waste of time if you don’t put in the necessary work writing great copy for your site. A beautiful site interface can only take you so far if your copy is incomprehensible. Keep your copy simple, to the point, and use impactful keywords. For tips on website copywriting, check out our white paper. SEO is another beast unto itself. To keep things simple, use plug-ins like Yoast that make SEO an intuitive process.
  • Make it Easy to Get In Touch There’s nothing worse than visiting a site where the only form of contact your customers can make is by submitting a form. I’d venture a guess that sites with easy and direct points of contact, whether an email or phone number (or even a social media account like Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook) have higher follow through rates than ones with just a form.

Ultimately, you don’t have to fear your website. Launching a site or updating your existing one can seem like a daunting process, but with the help of the above tools and ideas, a great website is well within reach.

Are you ready to reap the benefits of a great website?