8 Smart Tips On Creating A Website

There’s no barrier to website creation. As long as you have a computer, an internet connection, and a capacity to read and follow instructions, then you can easily whip one up in a matter of minutes.

However, as more and more people create websites, the core tenets of good site development seem to get lost in the mire. Now, you have unoptimized sites with horrible UI, business blogs that churn out content no one likes to read, and online stores that don’t work properly.

Don’t let your website be another online casualty. Here are eight smart tips that you need to know when creating a website.

Smart Tip #1: Determine What Kind of Website You’ll Be Building

Why? Because this will, in turn, determine the kind of website building platform that you’ll use. It will also provide a framework with which you’ll build your site around.

There are three popular site building platforms / content management systems that are in use today. These are Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress. Joomla is commonly used for online stores but require a lot of back-end coding. Drupal is popular among web developers and people with a lot of coding experience, but is extremely complicated to use. Most website nowadays (about 50% of them in fact) use WordPress as their CMS, and this is probably the CMS that you’ll use in your website. A few examples of WordPress sites are as follows:

1. The Personal Website
This is the most common type of WordPress site that you’ll see on a normal browsing day. Do take note that the category name “Personal” here does not really fall into a strict definition- a personal website might just be a space where people write down their thoughts, post pictures, and share personal reviews on things. The goal of a personal website is to document, inform, and entertain; most of the time, this kind of site is just run by a single person and is created out of the pre-made themes on the WordPress blogging platform.

2. The Business Website
Whether it’s promoting a brand or publicizing a media campaign, this type of WordPress site’s intentions is clear- to provide an online presence for the business in question. The business website is the portal for all things that are related to a particular establishment, brand, item, or service. Here you can find the addresses of a business, its contact numbers, its owners, its origins and history, and maybe even a few articles or so that are related to the business’ industry.

3. The Portfolio
Common among creatives such as writers, artists, graphic designers, web and game developers, the Portfolio is simply an online space wherein people can post, share, brag, and showcase their current works and past projects.

4. The eCommerce Website/ Online Store
The power of WordPress is such that it can be used to build a fully functional online store from the ground up. This can be achieved through the use of special eCommerce toolkits and plugins for the WordPress platform.

Smart Tip #2: It’s All in the (Domain) Name

A short and sweet domain name can spell the success or failure of a site. It is practically your calling card on the internet, so make sure it is something memorable AND is related to the name of your business or to the content of your site. Domain name registration often comes free with hosting services.

Smart Tip #3: As Much as Possible, Don’t Use Free Templates

WordPress already has a lot of free templates that you can use, and they all look pretty and professional. But think how awkward it is to see another site on the internet that looks exactly the same as yours?

This is the reason why getting a custom-made template that is specifically designed around your vision as well as the purpose, content, and flow of your site is often your best bet. Sure, it might be costlier, but it will be better for your site in the long run.

Smart Tip #4: Always Use Responsive Design

Let’s face it. A lot of people nowadays spend much more time browsing the internet on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets instead of the old usual desktops and laptops. Having responsive design means that your website will be able to adjust to any screen size, regardless of what device a person is viewing it from. This is absolutely necessary in this day and age where mobile devices practically outnumber desktops.

Smart Tip #5: Marketing Through Social Media

When launching a new website, it might take some time before visitors and the benefits of Google Search come rolling in. So how do you establish your newborn website’s place on the front page of Google rankings while you take time to further develop the more important aspects of your its existence? You do it with social media, of course. Creating an account on major social networks (like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or even YouTube) will get your website’s name out in the open and onto the number one spot on Google searches. You can also establish a few good inbound links for your site using this process.



Smart Tip #6: Focus on Smart Content Production

In a study made by the Content Marketing Institute, almost ninety percent of B2B (business-to-business) marketers engage in content marketing, while sixty percent are planning to increase their spending on content production in the near future. Why this much focus on content?

Simple. Content production forms the backbone of your SEO and social media efforts. And it’s not just plain old content that gets you to the top, it’s EXCEPTIONAL, HIGH QUALITY content that takes you there. With social media, brainstorming for future content topics will be a piece of cake. No more guesswork required – you can directly ask your audience what they want to see, read or hear. You can produce and share almost anything – from “behind the scenes” photos of your staff, podcasts, (video)vodcasts, infographics, to personal musings and other stuff which your followers might find interesting. Comments and feedback from customers and clients can be viewed almost instantly.

Smart Tip #7: Find Sponsors or Host Guest Bloggers on Your Site

If you do need to squeeze out a few more bucks out of your website, you might want to try seeking out advertisers or sponsors. For starters, you might want to create a list of a few companies or business that you think might want to sponsor blog posts or buy advertising space on your site. If you have a decent amount of unique visitors coming in every month and a loyal readership base, then companies might find it attractive to sponsor blog content like articles, podcasts, videos, advertisements and other forms of media.

Smart Tip #8: Do Keyword Research

Keyword research is important because businesses need to know the right keywords or key phrases that their websites should be optimizing for. Social media networks are best utilized for this purpose due to the sheer number of data that can be lifted from them. For example, with social media we can figure out:

1. Recent trending topics (locally or worldwide)
2. Discover new points of engagement.
3. View demand for particular keywords
4. Figure out followers’/customers interests