A Guide to Building a Website and Making it Live
Whether you’re building your first website or updating your current one, you have some important basic and more complex decisions to make depending on your business type. From choosing a domain name to selecting a hosting platform, to the aesthetic and coding of your website, there’s a lot to cover. To ensure we don’t miss anything, here’s a useful guide on building a website and making it live.
Website builder vs. WordPress
Website builders are extremely popular nowadays, but you need to know how to use these builders and select one that can match up with your needs. Selecting a website builder that does not allow scalability, for instance, means you’ll only have to move your website elsewhere – this can cost more money and take precious time, decreasing your website’s uptime.
While you do not need to know much technical jargon when using a website builder, it can still be a chore for those who do not have website building experience. If this is you, then it is easier to build a website using WordPress and hiring the help of a professional. Not only does WordPress offer convenience, but it is ideal for content marketing, SEO, and social media integration.
Both are, however, suitable options. Be sure to look at the packages available on all website building platforms.
Pick a domain name/hosting platform
Once you have decided on your platform, it’s time to pick your domain name. Your domain name can make or break your company, as it should reflect your brand, what you do, whether it’s memorable and easy to search.
For instance, if you are marketing yourself, your domain should be “yourname.com.”
Avoid numbers and characters such as hyphens. This will cheapen the look of your domain name, but also make it much harder to remember.
The functionality and practicality of your website largely depends on your hosting provider; this is because they are responsible for keeping your website up and running. The wrong web host can cause brand-damaging issues to your website, losing you conversions and sales.
If you are unsure on the best hosting package for your website, then be sure to speak to our team for more information on our cloud based web hosting. Our systems are fully optimised for WordPress, too.
Popular website designs
There is certainly a theme for website design right now, and the design of your website is essential to building the right brand reputation but also gain trust from any visitors on your site. Your website design will be based on whether you chose WordPress or a website builder. With the latter, you may be confined to certain themes and templates.
While it may seem like a large order, the key things to remember are:
- Clean design
- Mobile optimisation
- One or two column layouts
- Easy to navigate
- Unique design elements
Of course, if you are unsure on the best look for your website, you can always turn to web design professionals. By doing so, your website will exude professionalism.
It is important, though, for you to decide on the feature before you start designing. This is to ensure clarity on what you want to gain from your website and how. For example, do you want to have a large social media base? If so, then you will want your website to integrate with your social media profiles.
Test it out
Before going live, you need to test it out. Not doing so can have catastrophic consequences and leave your business floundering before it’s even properly started. Once the website is tested and free from errors, it’s time to go live.