While it may seem like a difficult task, making your own website is actually pretty straightforward and simple! You may have to go through a few tutorials and watch a couple of videos on YouTube to get the basics down, but there really isn’t that much to it.
It’s not like you’re going to be making your own video game or trying to make the world’s best app. Even if you don’t consider yourself the most tech-savvy person, it’s a task that you can with by yourself, with your friends or with your family.
Maybe you’re setting up a website for your business or adding an online store. It’s the internet, so the possibilities really are endless.
Below are some tips to help you get started!
What’s it all about?
First and foremost, you’re going to have to decide what you want your website to be about. It would be great if your website could cater to every man, woman, and child on the planet, but unless your website is giving away free money, that’s probably not going to be the case.
You’ll need to think of what you want your website to be. Are you just going to start a travel blog? Are you going to talk about local businesses? Are you a news website? Are you adding a webpage for your existing small business?
Hopefully, this is pretty clear from the start, and it may be worth a brainstorm session or two.
Secondly, you would have to think about your audience. Who exactly is your website for? Families? Teens? Teachers? A certain city or state?
You’ll want to make sure your website is going to be something your audience is going to read and enjoy. Go deep instead of wide.
Knock Out the Tech Side
You can’t put anything on a real website until you have a domain. What is a domain? It’s what comes in between the “www” and the “.com,” “.org,” etc. You’ll have to think of a proper name that easily shows what your website is and who you are.
You don’t want a name to be incredibly long or too confusing. Remember, in this day and age if something is too confusing or takes too long, people are already moving on to the next thing.
The design aspect could cover a whole other article, but you shouldn’t have to worry about it too much. The service where you obtained your domain likely has tools to help you design your website, everything from text layout to organizing photos.
One important factor to keep in mind is making sure that your website is mobile friendly. More and more people are visiting websites on their phones instead of on a computer. You don’t want to lose any traffic or customers because they don’t feel like using the two-finger zoom to read any text.
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Get to Know SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is what is going to drive traffic to your website. Unless you’re on the dark web, you want people to come visit your website and see what you have to offer.
There are countless tips on improving your SEO and driving more people to your website, so it’s best you read up and watch a few tutorial videos. There are plenty of places that offer free SEO crash courses so you can learn the basics.
Neglecting this means your webpage is more like to be buried on the back pages of Google. Really, when was the last time you went past page one?
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Make a Schedule
Think about your favorite TV show. What would happen if one week it didn’t appear at the scheduled time? But the next week, it showed up on a random Tuesday morning. The next week it was at a completely different time. Eventually, watching the show would become a chore, and you might just give up.
The same applies to your website. If you are trying to bring people to your website, you need to have regular content being pushed out. Now, this doesn’t mean every Monday at 3 P.M. you publish something, but you have to give people a reason to keep coming back. If not, they’ll eventually lose interest.
If you have a website that doesn’t need content regularly pushed out, still think about providing updates. If you have a restaurant, posting pictures of items on the menu or photos from a special occasion may be a great idea.
