Substance and Style

It’s a given that every business needs a website. COVID made that even more clear as businesses struggled to serve customers from a distance. If you need a site and you aren’t a designer, you really should hire one. Even if you’re tech savvy, you’re going to run into issues that could be solved quickly but are bound to cost you in time and frustration. If hiring a designer isn’t in the budget or if you want to try your hand at web design, it’s a good idea to start out with something basic. Put the majority of your effort into creating something functional with a good user experience. Whether you opt to hire someone or do it yourself, you should do some planning in advance. Knowing the answers to these questions will save you time and effort either way.

1. What do you want this website to accomplish? Even though everyone pretty much needs one, people don’t have websites just to have websites. Websites are a means to an end. If you’re a business owner, that end is probably to make money, either by selling products or services directly from your site or by marketing those products and services. The website itself may be the product if you’re starting a membership site. If you’re running a nonprofit, the goal might be to bring in donations or volunteers or raise awareness. Whatever the purpose of your website, keep it in mind the whole time you’re building it.
2. How will the writing and design support your objectives? What kind of content do you need? Think about what people need to know about you and where they will find that information. At a minimum, you will want the basic pages: Home, About, and Contact. You will probably want a Products or Services page as well, and a way to make payments or donations, depending on your business. You may also have a portfolio or a blog if either of those fit your marketing strategy (if you’re using WordPress, most themes will require you to assign a page as the blog page, but that page doesn’t have to be visible). Beyond these, your site can have anything you want. Think about how people will find your content. How will you optimize your site for search? (For tips on boosting your organic rankings, see my post from August 1 here).
3. If you’re planning to monetize your site or take payments online, how will you accomplish that? Will you need a whole storefront solution like WooCommerce or will you simply have a payment or donation page? How will you make it easy for your customers to understand and use? Save yourself time and hassle by researching what you’ll need upfront. If you’re using WordPress, for example, you need at least the lowest cost ($4/mo.) paid plan in order to take payments. You’ll need a premium plan if you’re planning to upload videos or earn ad revenue, and you’ll need a business plan if you’re going to be installing plugins to create a storefront or membership site. 
4. How will the site’s language and design fit in with your current branding? Your website is the face of your business online. Depending on what you do, it may be your business’s only location. It needs to reflect your company’s personality and be consistent with any marketing materials you’ve already produced, from your logo to your business cards to your social media. Use a similar tone in your language, use the same fonts, and use the same color scheme. If you’re just starting out, you can use the website to start the branding process. But no matter what comes first, keep the brand consistent everywhere.  
5. How will you arrange information? Your pages should be arranged in a way that feels intuitive to the person visiting your site. It is helpful to frame things as an outline, as you would for a table of contents. While a site map is rarely used for small sites, it’s useful to organize your content as if you’re making one. Tip: this outline can become your site’s navigation menu once you’ve created your pages.