Creating a Winning Website
Once you have achieved the first stage- you own and have registered your chosen domain name with your details – you now need to create a winning website on that domain.
There are a myriad of options here, ranging from employing a web company to design a website for you, to building it yourself. The best option depends on what you want the website for and your budget. The most expensive option is not, however, necessarily the best.
WordPress
- I would recommend www.wordpress.co.uk as a good place to start.
- WordPress is an “open source program” – free and maintained by enthusiasts rather than a single company
- WordPress was actually started as a blogging platform but, over time, people have used it more and more to build websites
- WordPress is easy to learn and use
- Sites built in Wordpress tend to perform very well in Google searches
Beware, however, because external web companies you hire may not be very keen for you to develop sites based on WordPress: building your site on this platform gives your company and employees a lot of independence to edit your site without a great deal of technical knowledge. Web Design companies would obviously prefer you to need them to administer and maintain your site so they will probably try to talk you into using more complicated platforms than WordPress. Crafty Web Companies!
There are a large number of WordPress themes available. These are essentially different designs of blank websites into which you drop your content, text, photos and videos. Most of the designs are free but some of them may cost a small amount. In general they look great- very clean and modern – and increasingly many of the sites you see on the web are designed in WordPress without you even realizing it.
Overall, if you like technology and have the time, I would advise you to look at WordPress. If technology terrifies you or you simply do not have time to spare from the day-to-day running of your business, perhaps it might be best to look for a Web Design company to create your website for you.
Choosing a Web Design Company
Contrary to popular belief, websites do not need to be expensive. I would recommend that you create a brief detailing exactly what you want from your site and get quotes from at least three different Web Design companies.
TIP: Where possible, it is often best to use a local company because building and maintaining a website requires a lot of communication which may be best performed personally rather than on the phone.
In your website specification you will need to let them know how large you would like the website to be (how many pages) and what content you want on the pages. It is possible to include text, photos, audio and video.
Generally web companies are happier to create a website that you have provided content for. You have the expertise and will know the topic better than them. This unfortunately means that in most cases you will need to provide all the content for the website yourself. This will either require allocating time from yourself or employing a copywriter.
Plan Your Resources
It is important to think about what you have time to create before approaching a website company. A bit like planning an extension to your house and employing a builder- it is best to have thought things through and come up with a plan before hand rather than making it up as you go along.
Remember that a website is an evolving creation. It should be updated regularly with new content which is often done via a Blog (the quickest, easiest and most current method). Google actively encourages websites to regularly add new content and actively penalizes the rankings of companies which do not do so.
Creating a Winning Website
Once you have achieved the first stage- you own and have registered your chose domain name with your details – you now need to create a winning website on that domain.
There are a myriad of options here, ranging from employing a web company to design a website for you, to building it yourself. The best option depends on what you want the website for and your budget. The most expensive option is not, however, necessarily the best.
I would recommend www.wordpress.co.uk as a good place to start. WordPress is an “open source program”. This means that it is free and maintained by enthusiasts rather than a single company. WordPress was actually started as a blogging platform but, over time, people have used it more and more to build websites.
The advantages of WordPress are that it is free and easy to learn and use and sites built in it tend to perform very well in Google searches. Beware, however, because web companies may not be very keen for you to develop sites based on WordPress: building your site on this platform gives your company and employees a lot of independence to edit your site without a great deal of technical knowledge. Web Design companies would obviously prefer you to need them to administer and maintain your site so they will probably try to talk you into using more complicated platforms than WordPress.
There are a large number of WordPress themes available. These are essentially different designs of blank websites into which you drop your content, text, photos and videos. Most of the designs are free but some of them may cost a small amount. In general they look great- very clean and modern – and increasingly many of the sites you see on the web are designed in WordPress without you even realizing it.
Overall, if you like technology and have the time, I would advise you to look at WordPress. If technology terrifies you or you simply do not have time to spare from the day-to-day running of your business, perhaps it might be best to look for a Web Design company to create your website for you.
Choosing a Web Design Company
Contrary to popular belief, websites do not need to be expensive. I would recommend that you create a brief detailing exactly what you want from your site and get quotes from at least three different Web Design companies. Where possible, I feel it is best to use a local company as building and maintaining a website requires a lot of communication which may be best performed personally rather than on the phone.
In your website specification you will need to let them know how large you would like the website to be (how many pages) and what content you want on the pages. It is possible to include text, photos, audio and video. Generally web companies are happier to create a website that you have provided content for. You have the expertise and will know the topic better than them.
This unfortunately means that in most cases you will need to provide all the content for the website yourself. This will either require allocating time from yourself or employing a copywriter.
It is important to think about what you have time to create before approaching a website company. A bit like planning an extension to your house and employing a builder- it is best to have thought things through and come up with a plan before hand rather than making it up as you go along.
Remember that a website is an evolving creation. It should be updated regularly with new content which is often done via a Blog (the quickest, easiest and most current method). Google actively encourages websites to regularly add new content and actively penalizes the rankings of companies which do not do so.
In our next Marketing Your Business Online Blog…Tracking Success! If you are interested in more in-depth business marketing training for the medical aesthetics industry, Cosmetic Courses are experts in providing this. Call us today on 0845 230 4110 or [email protected]
