The distance between a mind-blowing idea and success depends on implementation. If you can devise a good plan and implement it, you are very close to success. If not, your big idea is a piece of crumpled paper in the trash can. Do you have a big idea? Do you need to build a website for it? Don’t rush. Calm down and think about what you need to make your big idea come to fruition. It cannot simply be fabulous, terrific (or any adjective you can think of). Your website should be functioning enough to bring about the changes you need. You cannot turn into Jack Ma within a day. You need to set apart your website, or maybe it needs to be crazier. But before that, you need to acquaint yourself with the terms of website building.
Terms To Know To Build A Website
Domain – A domain is the name of your website. Every domain name is unique. It is an address used to find and identify your website. e.g., example.com, example.org, etc.
Website builder – Website builder allows users to build a website using pre-installed templates. Users do not need to write any codes to make a website.
Web Hosting – Web hosting allows users to post a website or web page on the internet. It maintains secure and stable storage spaces.
How To Build A Website By Yourself?
Creating a website is easy and even cheap if you look for free website builders like WordPress. It comes with enough plug-ins to host your website without any issues. It also provides insights, marketing tips, and SEO help to improve your website. If you are a small business, then starting with WordPress is a good idea. Start small and stay within budget. There are a lot of interesting and robust ways to build your website. But if you cross your budget in only looking good, you will have a tough time with the remaining services. You will have to be cautious while creating the website.
Strategize
First, make a strategy on how to tap the audience. It is the most obvious step, and most businesses start with it. Well, the point here is to consider that strategy and create a website according to it. Your strategy will give you a clear idea of how you will move. What features and look-and-feel to go for? For instance, if you make a website for shoes targeting young men, you will have to go for an interface appealing to men. If you are building a portfolio website, you will have to give up the many attractive features of no use to your website. Know what your requirements are, and then plan accordingly.
Make a Domain
Select a unique domain name that is the name of your business. You can use .com for commercial, .org for organization, and similar abbreviations for your domain name. Dotcom is the most common one, and most businesses use it. After deciding on a domain name, you will have to register it. Usually, the registration is for one year. After a year, the domain name expires and becomes free to use by anyone. You will have to keep renewing the domain name every year.
Choose a Website Builder
There are many free website builders. WordPress is one such free and open-source tool that you can use with complete control. You can even find many high-quality templates available for free and opt for premium features fitting your requirements.
To make an e-commerce website, you can use Shopify that comes with easy-to-use controls. You can create product pages, give coupons and discounts, change the website layout, all according to your need. The only downside is custom-made templates, and that that you don’t have much flexibility to change the initial layout. Better features might come under expensive packages.
There are many similar website builders that you can use for starting your small business. You can invest low with the free websites and then move to even more premium versions when you gain traction.
Select a web hosting service
There are many kinds of web hosting services, viz, shared, managed, cloud hosting services.
Shared Web Hosting – It is a cheap website hosting service with many domains or businesses sharing it. The plus side is that it is affordable, easy to manage the webpages, domains, and email ids. The downside is that it takes longer to load a page, slow server response time, and website downtime. The security of such pages is weak and prone to virus attacks or data thefts.
Managed Web Hosting – This service is more secure, handles backup files and data with faster loading speed. The only downside is the expensive service. It is suitable for medium and large businesses and not for small businesses.
Know your Budget
When you are DIYing a website, you will have to decide your budget. The cost to create a website on a website builder can be anywhere from $100 to $500. A simple website will cost you roughly $111 (adding the cost of $15/year for the domain and Webhosting $8/month).
If you need advanced features in your website, you will have to invest more than $500. A custom-built website can cost you about $30000.
You need to know what features you require the most in your website and what features you can do without. Many free plug-ins will bring down your web building cost by a large amount. You can get free marketing insights, enhance your search results and even improve the security of your web page.
If You Find this Mind-Boggling…
Doing everything on your own may sound cost-effective. But you may end up losing more money than intended. Some features may not work the way you wanted. Your website may look good on desktop but look tacky on mobile. Your website might load slowly because of outdated features. You might need a cross-platform app development service or a hyperlocal solution that could make you stand out.
The features you wanted or deemed necessary might cross the budget, you will have to step back and think for alternatives. In most cases, you will be investing a lot of money but end up with substandard products. There is no dearth of good quality pre-made templates, but whether they suit your business is another thing. If you find yourself at such a crossroads, then hire someone to build a website.
If you are clear on the type of website, the features best for you, you can outsource web developers and get a custom-built website. You can get developers within your budget constraints. The downside is that you have to pay developers to get your website made. But the upside is that you will get a quality website with the desired qualities.
Before Getting Down to Business, Know What Services You Might Require –
- Business Analyst – You can yourself analyze your product and service. But getting inputs from experts is different. You might be able to know what direction to go with the help of the analyst. You will know what method will work best for you with data and accurate analysis.
- Project manager – A project manager will devise a plan on how to launch your website. They will be crucial in deciding what features and layout will work best for you.
- Front-end and Back end Developers – The developers will build the website from scratch using various languages and technology stacks. You can get various features like smooth landing pages, pop-up notifications, or customized buttons for your website. You might be able to innovative features with the help of expert developers to make your website stand out even more.
- Graphic Designers – An eye-catchy website brings in customers. You need an engaging and easy-to-use interface. That is provided by graphic designers that will design the look and feel of all your web pages.
- Content Writers – just as visuals are required, the right words will work as hook, line, and sinker. If the search results hook your customers, the graphics will line them, and the right words will lead to conversion. Of course, your services have to be good. But before that, words are essential to attract your target audiences.
- Quality Assessment – Before launching the website, you will have to make sure your website works without any problem. You will need to do a lot of tests to see if all the features work fine. There aren’t any bugs. Even after launching your website, you will have to keep a look at the functioning of your website.
Also, you need to keep on updating your website to match the demands of the growing time. An in-house team of developers may be costly, but hiring or outsourcing developers will be a cost-effective solution for you, even if you are a small business.