SINGAPORE – These days, it’s hard to imagine businesses without a website or some form of online presence. Websites have become invaluable tools to market a brand at a low cost that anyone, anywhere in the world can potentially access.
Launching your own website can be intimidating at first, but as long as you cover the essentials, you should be well on your way to success. We’ll be doing a comprehensive overview of what you need to prepare before engaging an agency to create your website. This will ensure a smooth process from start to finish.
Read on to find out more!
What To Prepare Before Creating A Website
Let’s break down what you need to prepare to create your website. These are the essentials every agency will cover during the development process. Start by following our list, then add or edit from there depending on your needs.
1. Purpose
Before you begin, determine the goal of your website. Are you promoting a business? Displaying a personal portfolio? Starting a blog to share your thoughts?
Defining the purpose of your website will help you determine what elements or pages you need to include in your website. For example, a blog focuses on writing, multiple article layouts and an easy way to archive and filter past articles. A business website on the other hand, might require robust e-commerce features such as third-party logistics integration for easy delivery fulfillment or membership points to encourage repeat purchases. An example: confinement soup delivery service.
Pages and Navigation
Once you have the purpose of your website nailed down, you can start mapping out the necessary pages and navigation path of your website. From here, you should start thinking about how your website will flow as well as the user interface and user experience.
This is when you should rely on the expertise of your chosen web development agency to make sound recommendations based on their experience and knowledge of industry standards.
2. Homepage/Landing Page
The homepage or landing page is the first thing your viewer sees when they click or type in your URL.
A good landing page should include a brief overview of the purpose of your business, as well as prominent Call To Action (CTA) buttons that guide users to your goal conversion. Goal conversions can include purchasing a product, making a booking, filling up a survey and more — whatever action you want your customer to take is up to you!
3. About Page
Your about page is an important tool that gives you an opportunity to connect with visitors and give them an overview about your brand. You can include a brief history of your company, your mission and vision, and any other essential information that you want your readers to know. This can also be a good opportunity to include any certifications, awards, or accreditations.
4. Product/Services Page
This section is where your customers can look at, order, or book your product or service. Customise this section based on your needs to make conversions as easy as possible. This includes a seamless, easy-to-follow checkout process and transparent rates.
Statistics show that e-commerce shopping carts are abandoned 69.82% of the time due to a variety of reasons — the highest being expensive shipping or hidden costs, confusing interfaces, and long load times. These are some aspects you should address when building your site.
5. Blog/Gallery
Depending on the type of website you’re building, you can use this area to expound on your subject matter. Product or service offerings can benefit from either informative blog articles that allude to your business or a gallery to visually showcase what you do.
Blogs are a great way to consistently generate content that engages your audience and generate organic traffic using search engine optimisation techniques.
6. Contact Page
The last essential page we recommend is the Contact Us page. This gives your audience a quick and direct way to contact you should they have any questions, clarifications, or concerns.
You may also want to link your social media pages here for them to explore.
7. Domain
Your website’s domain is the URL a customer enters into their web browser to get to your website. Before jumping headfirst into your graphic design and collaterals, make sure that your desired domain name is available. Check out this guide on choosing a good website domain name.
A good domain name is unique, short and easy to remember. Once you’ve settled on a domain name and checked that it is available, you can proceed to purchase the domain for your website. Your web development agency should be able to assist you with checking and purchasing your domain name — some might even help you out with suggestions!
8. Branding
Every good business has a branding strategy or guide. This ensures that everything from your imagery to fonts, colours, and logos are consistent and in line with your goals and target audience. Your branding also expands to the tone of voice you use in any of your copies. Are you a friendly, personable brand? Or do you want to appear more professional and authoritative?
Branding guides can be complex or detailed, depending on your needs. Consider hiring an experienced agency for this task — they can provide you with teams that specialise in marketing and branding to produce a coherent brand guide for your business
9. Copy
The words we use tell a story. That’s why a well-thought-out and consistent tone is vital to tie in together the validity of your brand and message. Copies should reflect your company’s values and goals.
It wouldn’t make sense for a finance website, for instance, to use slang or overly colloquial language. The same applies to fun e-commerce sites that are targeted toward a younger crowd — you wouldn’t want your copy to be overly formal or heavy on jargon.
Make sure not to scrimp on your copy. Grammatical errors or misleading content can turn away many potential clients. If you’re not able to handle your website copywriting on your own, you can get an agency to assist. This is a surefire way to make sure your copies are written with quality in line with your brand.
Essentials (About Us, Contact Us, Services)
These pages should contain adequate information on the history and unique selling points of your business, as well as relay your value proposition to customers. Make sure your copy is clear, proofread and straight to the point. No one should have to heavily analyse what they’re reading — this can turn off your potential customers.
Product Descriptions
Product images are more successful when followed by succinct descriptions. Viewers like to know what they are seeing, and product descriptions can be useful at painting a scenario with the product that cannot be communicated via an image. An example: single bed frame product description.
Blog/Articles
Depending on your business, you may want to include a blog section where you can write or link to informative articles that relate to your business. This can help teach clients about what your product or service does and increase your brand authority.
Checklist
Creating a small business website can be a lot of work, but it doesn’t need to be overwhelming.
We find that going through a checklist can help you outline what you need to do and take note of what you’re lacking. This checklist is a general recommendation of the most important elements in websites, but you may edit this list based on the unique requirements of your brand.
Before creating a website, make sure you prepare:
- Your purpose
- A Home Page that conveys the overview of your business
- An About Page that tells the reader about your brand and its goals
- Products or services page where people can avail of your offering
- A Blog or Gallery with relevant articles or pictures
- A Contact page so your viewers can easily reach you
- Your domain and page name
- A branding playbook
- A guide for your copy
Bottomline
Your website serves as a peek into your business. For many of your potential clients, this is the first and only resource they will use to verify that your business is legitimate. Your website will be the primary driver of online conversions, so make sure that each element of your site is well thought out and clear.
It’s easy to make a slapdash version of a webpage, just to say you have one. But at the end of the day, your site serves as an extension of your business, and a good one will always translate to higher conversion rates.
However, there’s no reason to put all the burden on your own team.
Let FirstCom Solutions handle your web development projects! Speak to our consultant to discuss our comprehensive web development services and receive step-by-step guidance on building a lead-generating and revenue-increasing website. Our team of professionals are happy to help!
