 The 101 How to Create a Website ListPublished Date: 2010-02-05 09:10:35 WorkOnInternet.com
Planning your website 1. Define your customers - Who, what and why 2. Define your mission - What are you selling, why are you the best option 3. Choose your domain name - keep it short and make sure that it is easy to say and spell 4. Use relevant keywords to your website service or product in your domain name 5. Make use of Google Keyword Tool to find the best keywords for your niche 6. Make a drawing of your website design (this will change all the time) Adding content to your website 7. Do not make your website look or read like an add 8. Keep your content concise and use bullet points when possible 9. Make sure that your customers understand what you are writing - be careful of using industry jargon to show how smart you are 10. Always spell check and proofread your copy more than once 11. Hire a professional with web experience to write your copy for you if you are unsure of yourself 12. Only use the images and graphics needed to bolster your text, less is more 13. Good pictures can make a major difference Create a budget, there are many expenses to consider 14. How many products or services are you selling? 15. Do you have blogs, surveys or newsletters? 16. What will the cost be of your web hosting, design and domain name? 17. Will you be outsourcing the writing and designing of your website? 18. What will the cost be to securely process orders? 19. How will you be driving traffic to your website after it has been built? 20. Remember that you can start small and grow so always stick to your initial budget Building your website 21. Decide whether you are going to built your site yourself or use a professional 22. If you are going to do it yourself make sure that you have the necessary tools 23. There are a number of reputable DIY web site providers on the web to choose from (Microsoft Office Live Small Business or Yahoo! Small Business to name two) 24. If you are going to use a professional, use someone like websitepros.com to assist you with the decision making process. 25. Choose the correct web hosts, use Web Hosting Review, Hosting Review or consumer Search to assist you 26. Choose a merchant account service (Pay Pal is one of the more well known providers) 27. If you are not using a designer to manage your photos and graphics you need a tool (try Microsoft Digital Image Suite, PhotoPlus or Quick Web Photo Resizer) General design principles 28. Keep it clean 29. Never use dark text on dark backgrounds 30. Choose colours carefully 31. Make sure that your customers can always navigate easily around your website Pages a website should have 32. Contact us, 33. Testimonials 34. Privacy policy 35. FAQ 36. Free Goodies page 37. About us 38. Confirmation page that acknowledges an order and thanks the visitor Do not make these mistakes 39. Do not have a confusing site structure 40. Do not make the menu to complicated 41. Do not laps onto industry jargon 42. Do not over promise and under deliver Incorporate the following 43. Pay attention to contrast and sharpness throughout your website 44. Know HTML but only what you need to know 45. Add PayPal buttons 46. Add an embedded video player 47. Add slide shows 48. Let visitors open new browser windows from a link 49. Add maps and directions 50. Add a hit counter (resources: htmlgoodies.com, websitetips.com) To start selling online 51. Add a PayPal button 52. You can list and sell your products on eBay and Amazon 53. You can build your own e-commerce store using a Web designer or template based Web store Look for the following in your e-commerce software 54. Can the software grow with you business? 55. Can you include special offers? 56. Does it include a newsletter, e-mail, guestbook, blogging and affiliate linking? 57. Is it easy to highlight your top sellers? 58. Does it include effective sales analysis? 59. Does it allow you to offer volume pricing? 60. Study Amazon.com for some store ideas Incorporate SEO into your website to ensure high rankings on the search engine results pages 61. Get the most from you URL - be creative 62. Use the most effective keywords (high search volume and low competition) 63. Create search-friendly page titles incorporating your keywords 64. Highlight your keywords 65. Focus on your keyword density (between 3 for pages with a lot of text, less than 10% for pages with less text) 66. Emphasize your text links 67. Include variations of your keywords 68. Link every page to other pages on your site 69. Make sure it is easy to navigate for your customers (resources: Google's Webmasters Help centre, The Backlink Assistant, Search Engine Marketing Professional ) Test your site 70. Checking for spelling and grammar more than once 71. The consistency of your pages and navigation across your site 72. Test all of the links 73. Can your pages be printed 74. Submit your site for customer reviews 75. Ask the following questions: 76. Will your customers understand or have questions about the information on your site? 77. Does your website flow and is it easy to find your way around? 78. Do your pages load quickly? 79. Do the pages print ok? 80. Are the videos, audio and images the right size? 81. Are your products and services clearly displayed? 82. Is you shopping cart easy to use and is your shopping cart trust worthy? 83. Are all of the forms easy to understand, fill in and send? 84. Test your site across all browsers and make sure that your site works on all platforms and operating systems Key website information that you need to know 85. Search engines and the keywords people use to find you 86. Traffic summary 87. Entry page report 88. Most requested pages report Take your website Live!! 89. Register with search engines 90. Buy adds or better placement 91. Sign-up with directories 92. Launch a PR campaign 93. Try Pay-Per-Click 94. Start a Blog 95. Keep you website updated 96. Keep things secure 97. Manage existing content 98. Tend to your analysis and SEO 99. Add new content and links on a regular basis 100. Promote your website constantly 101. Submit new adds constantly Congratulations, you have made it to the end of the list!!. If you work through the list and ensure that you have taken all the points into consideration, you will end-up with a very good Website. Always remember that you can make use of a professional for any of the areas that you are not experienced in or comfortable with. If you make use of a professional service provider you should still use this list to double check that everything has been done. SEO article writing and marketing and seo link building are two of the most effective optimization and promotional tools available today. Look at using both of these tools as part of the SEO of your website. Thank you for reading this article and please use it to improve your website and to become successful.
The website has been upgraded. You are reading the article via the old version of the site, the url for the article is now at http://www.workoninternet.com/article_archive/30301.html Home | Submit Article| Article Topics | Article Archives | Newsletter | Business Directory | Contact US |
