These days everything and everyone is going digital, not only businesses but also individuals also require their own websites to showcase themselves. Basic Website development in the recent years has become much easier with the advent of build your own platforms such as WordPress, WIX and many others providing low code platforms for development.

 

But is it really that simple? Yes and no, this depends on what your requirements are, your technical skills and most importantly your budgets.

 

Before we begin let explore the types of websites that can be built by businesses and Individuals

Business
Type of Website	Why?
Portfolio / Branding	To showcase the business and create awareness about various services and products offered.
E Commerce Website	To sell or hawk Products and services
Booking Website	Allows Businesses to schedule appointments for Restaurants, Hospitals etc.
Blog	Allows the business to share their knowledge as well as market their content driving more traffic via content marketing
Landing Page	Appropriate for businesses requiring registrations, free trials or for their mobile applications
Event Website	A website for event showcasing and registrations
Media Website	For news magazines, school, or corporate magazines
Directory	Listing website of any kind for any searchable repository
Forums	A space where people can ask questions and collaborate with each other around the world

 

Individuals
Type of Website	Why?
Portfolio/ Branding / Resume	To showcase the Individual Brand for stars or to highlight an individual skill set for those who are looking to provide services like photography, art, and any other monetized skills. This can also include website where an individual’s resume is highlighted online
Online store	To sell any services or products online
Booking Website	To allow customers to book time slots for individual services
Blog	Individuals can pursue blogging both to share their opinions and their expertise

 

Now that we have the basic understanding of the different types of websites, we can explore how to build one.

1. Planning and requirement finalization

As with everything a successful website starts with good planning.

Think in terms of

Why? – Might sound stupid, but you need to start by listing down all the objectives of your website.

• Why do you need one?
• Why will your audience or customers come to your website?
• Why do your audience or customers buy from you?

You will realize that these are surprisingly similar to why you started your business in the first place. You need to list these down so that you can either build the website yourself or communicate the same to the teams who can create them.

What? – Now that you have the “Whys?” down pat, you need to think about the “Whats?”

• What will attract your audience?
• What does your customer want to see? (A survey of your customers or inputs from actual customers may help you figure this part out)
• What services or products do you think your customers would like to see?

You need to list these and more before proceeding to the “Wheres?”. Spend time thinking about your customer, their preferences, their personas to really understand how to ensure you put your best foot forward. You wouldn’t just open a store in 15 minutes, would you? Similarly, a lot of thought needs to go into building a website.

Where? – Once you have figured out the above, you now will have a big list of things that you want on your website. Now comes the placement, put yourself in your customers chair (from where they are browsing your website).

• Where should I place the contact information?
• Where must the products or services be?
• Where does the about us information go?

Get a paper or a pen and start drawing a rough layout on paper, this will come in handy later when you design your actual website. Browse your competitor websites both locally and globally to understand the trends to ensure that you work smartly. Try to differentiate from the local competition.

2. Domain –  A domain is nothing but an internet address similar to your physical address. If you want people to come to your place, you tell them its on XXX Road, besides XXX, you can’t miss it. Likewise, your domain tells people where your online presence is.

 

Getting a domain is easy these days, simply Google, “Buy a domain” and you will get plenty of options. Check out few of the sites and browse their pricing.

 

Decide on a name and check whether it is available. A Name is very important to ensure that your customer comes to the right address. Also keep it as short as possible, a longer name means more chances of mistakes. Remember, people are using their mobile more and it’s frustrating to type a lengthy address.

 

Buy your domain following the instructions, keep in mind the renewal charges as some websites may offer a cheap domain but an expensive renewal which will cost you in the long run.

 

3. Hosting

 

Now that you have an address you need a house or a hosting for your digital presence where you or a developer can store the code for your website for your customers to visit.

 

Choosing a good host can be a bit tricky, so take the time to read the reviews from various sources to ensure that the provider is good.

 

Once you purchase your hosting you need to tell them where to point your domain. You can do this by contacting your host and they will be happy to guide you.

 

4. Decision time

 

So, you have your domain and hosting, now you need to decide whether you are going to build it yourself or have it done professionally. If your requirements are fairly simple and you are quite tech savvy and have the time. It can save a lot of money to build your own website.

 

You can also do the simple parts yourself and have professional designers and developers complete the rest.

 

If you decide that the project is something you can do then the best way is to find a website theme that closely fits your requirements, install it on your hosting, following the Theme developer’s instructions. Once installed you can now begin by customizing the Content, Pictures, and the colors to ensure they match your brand and your customers liking. Once done you simply connect to the Google by installing the Site Kit Plugin and configure it following the instructions to ensure google knows you exist. You may want to check out our Digital marketing services to understand how you can get more visitors to your website.

 

5. Design

 

Designing a website professionally is the best way to do it as the experts will deliver the best possible experience for your customers. You remember the paper where you put all your boxes and layouts. Give these to your designer including the list you made with the “Whys?” “Whats?” and “Wheres?”.

 

Choosing a designer can be tricky, you need to find atleast 5 designers check out their portfolios to see whether they match your customers tastes. Remember Design is in 2 parts, Graphic and Web Design, Graphic Design is generally done by a Graphic artist and then this is converted to HTML by a web designer in code so that your developer can integrate the back end with your front end. There are pretty of designers who are doing both these days, so check out whether you will get only the Graphic design or you will get the ready code to give to your developer.

 

6. Development

 

Once your design is underway, you need to finalize your developer and ensure that they coordinate with the designer to ensure an Excellent looking website.

 

While choosing the developer you can again do a google search and check out their portfolios and their reviews. Talk to atleast five and see who you can work with and who is most likely to understand and translate your requirements.

 

Find out how much time it will take and how you can monitor the same. Monitoring is crucial as you don’t want the development teams taking of in the wrong direction, so ensure that you examine and scrutiny the work periodically, pointing out where you would like changes or elements that you don’t like.

 

7. Launch

 

Once the Website is ready you will need to either write the content yourself or hire a professional content writer to do the same for you. Remember you need to make sure that your customer understands how to easily browse and navigate your website.

 

Before launching you need to test each and every page yourself so that your customer doesn’t face any problems.

 

Do remember to tell Google that your website is ready by installing the Site Kit plugin or having your developer input code from Google onto your website headers.

 

That’s it your website is done!

 

You can go through the whole process, or you can just contact us, sit back and relax while we take the efforts and deploy the best possible teams to ensure your customers have the best experience.

 

Get in touch with us today to ask any questions or guidance to build your own website and we would be glad to help!