So you have been thinking about getting your space on the ever so growing internet, a website of your own. You have finally decided that it is time to venture into this action and really don't even know where to begin.
Look no further. Start here!
1. Keywords
Before you even begin searching for a domain name, you need to be thinking about certain keywords. You need to research all the possible keywords that pertain to you and the website you are planning to create. Having a keen understanding will make the site creation much easier and everything else to just simply "fall into place".
2. Selecting a Domain Name
If a business is already established, it is appropriate to have the business name as the domain name. If you don't have a business established or the domain name is already taken, then you might want to select a domain name with your industry in the name.
For example, if you are in the Web Development business in, lets say, Seattle, you can choose a domain that might reflect along these lines:
www.seattlewebdevelopment.com.
3. Content Management System (CMS)
If you are planning on having a website that will be large in scale and have content that will change on a regular basis, you should consider a CMS program. This will save you alot of time and trouble when you want to change content. If you are looking for a CMS/Blog program, I will strongly suggest
WordPress. If you plan to use a CMS program, you want to check if it is search engine friendly and offers a wide range of items, such as, custom URL's, unique title and meta tags, etc.
4. Structure
This is the most important step.. If you are lacking in structure, then your site might as well be dead.
If the content and keywords go together, then you might want to take note as to create pages for them. Start a list of the content you plan to use and then separate each into categories.
Make sure that the files are saved in an organized format. Files that have similar content, create sub-directories for each. For instance, lets say you have a website that sells bicycles by brand and model. You might want to have something like this:
Brand A/Type A.php
Brand A/Type B.php
Brand A/Type C.php
Keeping this structure clean and organized can not only have a visual appeal but also help with your search engine ranking.
5. Navigational System
When you are in the process of developing the website, be thinking of how you are going to make your sites nagivation search engine friendly.
If at all possible, use a text based navigation system and style using
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to make them appealing. The reasons for making your site navigation text based is so that the search engine bots are able to crawl the site more efficiently.
Bear to mind that the major search engines are unable to navigate through a website that use images (if not properly done) and JavaScript for their navigation.
If you absolutely choose to go the route of using images as your navigation, then listen up. When you use images as your form of navigation, make sure you add the alt tag to your images. This is the description of what the image is. Make sure you add text that is relevant to the link that the image is linking to, this way the search engines will associate this with the link and page.
6. Traffic Stats
Lets talk about stats for awhile. Even before your site launches, you will need to be thinking of having some sort of analytics for your site. You will need to be able to track our website traffic.
You can use the basic stats tracking software that might come included through your hosting provider but more times than not, they are unflexbile and reliable in tracking. When I am talking with clients about this aspect of websites I recommend
Google Analytics. Google Analytics is very simple to add to your site. Even if you are using WordPress as your website, like me, there is a
plugin that will allow Google Analytics to plug-in to your WordPress blog.
But if you are planning on developing a non-CMS or blogging software website, it is very easy to implement. If you go to
Google Analytics home page, it will walk you through the entire steps to setup tracking of your website.
7. Basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
So you are wanting your website to be able to be found in the major search engines. Where do I start, you may ask?
Make sure that all the pages within your site have different, specific
<TITLE> tags according to the content in the page, at the top of the code. This is an important role is
optimizing your site as also significant in search engine ranking.
8. Hosting
This step might will need to be before step 3 above if you are using WordPress or another CMS/Blogging platform.
You will need to find a hosting company that is not lite on your wallet but also has great features for the buck. Basically, the most bang for your dollar.
You will need a hosting area that is PHP5 compatible, has a range of available databases that you can setup, large amounts of a space and bandwidth. Also, you will need a company that has great customer support if need be.
May I suggest
WebNet Hosting. They are great and have some of the best customer service representatives I have ever talked to.
But It Doesn't Stop There
Okay so you have finished your website. You have lauched it out on the internet. Everyone has taken a look at it. Now, how do you get continued traffic to it? There will always be an on-going process of promoting your site. This never ends, believe me.
One thing I suggest is to begin to use Viral Marketing (Word of Mouth) and Social Media to drive traffic to your site.
Many of us already know the major players in Social Media currently. To name a few:
Twitter,
Facebook,
FriendFeed, etc.
Go out there and setup accounts with all of these and begin to connect with people across the world. This will bring in FREE traffic to your site and possibly continual traffic.
~ Kyle Reddoch
Photo Courtesy of ADA