5 Questions to Ask Yourselves Before Creating Your New Website

  • Content
  • Design
  • Web Development

Written by: Zoe Christodoulides

Creating a new website can be fun and exciting: it’s your chance to showcase your company or project to the whole world in the best possible light! But competition is fierce these days and with the digital world witnessing a constant transformation, it’s easy to find yourselves feeling a little lost in the very beginning. And sometimes, the most important questions we should be asking ourselves are neglected because we’re in a rush to get a site up and running. Don’t get caught up in the panic, we’ve outlined 5 simple things you need to think about and ask yourselves when taking the first steps in building your online presence!

 

1. What is the company image that you wish to portray?

So you know you need a website, but what is it that you really want to tell the world about your company? Before you even think about how you’d like your site to look design-wise, it’s really important to think about what your company stands for, and the overall impression that you want people to have the moment they click on your site. Is your company fun, innovative and creative? Or is it more corporate and serious? You need to be crystal clear about your core business image and values, before you set about creating a site that should then reinforce this image, with a successful and well planned strategy guiding you every step of the way.

 

2. What’s the main goal of the website?

When you have your brand image sorted, you need to think about what the driving force is behind your website. Are you just trying to showcase information about your company, raise awareness on certain issues, or will it be giving visitors the chance to make purchases and bookings? And this brings us onto another very important matter: who is your target audience? After all, the fundamental design and layout of your site depends on who you are trying to appeal to. Think about who you are targeting as a company and what their priorities are. The more you consider your audience and their needs, the more leads you are likely to generate!

 

3. What content will you be working with?

Once you have the main purpose of your new site clear in your mind, you need to think about your content. While it’s tempting to think of the design of the site first and then fill in the content later where needed, it actually needs to work the other way around. Good content these days is imperative and the right content will help you become an authority in your industry; it’s also going to help drive traffic to your site and improve search ranking in engines like Google. Good content will also help navigate visitors around the site and encourage interaction or purchases, where relevant. It’s crucial that you have quality content from the very beginning, whether you are writing this content yourselves or hiring a professional content writer or agency to do the job. And remember, it’s extremely important that your content reflects your brand image and ethos that we mentioned in section 1.

 

4. What’s your approach to the overall design?

While originality and an impressive design is crucial in order to stand out from the crowd, you want to ensure that the design of your website is as friendly to the user as possible. This means that you need to make sure not to over-complicate things – sleek and streamlined design works better than something fussy and overcrowded that will just discourage visitors from sticking around on the page very long. Again, you need to make sure that the design is consistent with your overall company image and when thinking of the user, make sure that all useful information is clearly accessible on the site as you design a site that will encourage them to navigate through it. And whatever you do, ensure that the site is mobile friendly, as an increasing number of users make online searches on the go. Be sure to check out what your competitors are doing too as you keep an eye out for current trends and even make a list of things that you like and other things that you don’t want to incorporate in your site.

 

5. Last but not least….what’s your budget?

This last point may seem pretty obvious, but in fact, it’s one that many people tend to not really take the time to sit down and think about properly. Setting up a website is not just something that you do and then never need to think about again. And what you need to ask yourselves is if you’re prepared to invest in the site after the launch. A good website will require maintenance, new content, A/B testing, possible new features, changes, improvements in the future and more. Think about what you’re able to set aside to for your website, not just today, but in the foreseeable future!   At Action Digital, we take great pride in helping our clients focus on their unique website objectives and goals. We will assist you every step of the way, ensuring that the end result is one that showcases your business in the best possible manner, with a strong and memorable presence in today’s online world.

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