Web Site Design & Marketing Guide

There are 5 main elements to any website that will make it work effectively. Technical requirements make up 3 of these which allow your website to operate, and a further 2 are required to ensure your website contributes to a business and these are marketing and purpose. Hopefully this article will clarify the requirements and provide a useful basis to making a website doesn’t just sit there, but works for you.

Technical Requirements

There are 3 technical requirements that must be fulfilled for your website to even show online. These are a domain (web address), web hosting, and the website files themselves. A good web designer will be able to provide all 3 of these. The domain is the web address that tells computers around the world where to find your website files e.g. www.niinternet.co.uk. The website files themselves are created by your web designer. These contain all of your websites content and design. Finally, the hosting refers to ther service where these files are stored. Hosting is usually a paid-for service that allows you to store your website files on a highly reliable computer that is permanently connected to the internet. If you have all 3 of these working correctly then your website will operate. However, just having w website doesnt mean anyone is going to visit it.

Marketing Requirement

A website can only be successful if there is someone to read the content, and this is where so many businesses fail online. There are many methods out there to get traffic. Many businesses forget to put their web address onto business cards, at the bottom of emails, in promotions, newspaper ads and in fact anything that will be seen by potential customers. Online marketing can be done through pay-per-click advertising, referral schemes and affilliate marketing. For the most cost effective long-term solution there is search engine optimization (SEO) which ensures traffic through high rankings in search engines.

Purpose

Without a purpose a website has no reason to attract visitor and provide them with anything useful. For a business a website must have a clearly defined Call-To-Action. Before having the website designed you should think about what the purpose of the website will be, and the best way to maximise return. At the end of the day, who spends out money to get nothing back in return. If you want to be contacted by phone, then display your phone number on every page, and make it clear in your content that you would like the visitor to phone you. If you would like to obtain an email address, then think about offering something back in return for them providing their email adress such as a discount or additional information.

There are so many websites out there that just exist. Companies  and individuals have a tendancy to build a website and spend a lot of money on it without carefully thinking through how they are going to maximise its use. If you get your website designed by a professional web design agency, i would suggest as a general rule spending an equivalent amount of money as you paid to have your website designed on marketing and Search Engine Optimization in year 1.

2 Responses to “What do I need to have a website?”