So you’ve just bought your first domain name ever! Cool, but “what am I supposed to do now?” you may ask Fear not! We are here to help you with just that. In this short guide we’ll walk you through the essential tips that you should incorporate into your first website!
First things first, we’re going to assume you have no experience in coding or all that techy stuff. You just want your website to be up and running as soon as possible and to be as attractive as it can be.
You can never go wrong with a good old WordPress powered site. With millions of free themes available online (and a bit of dabbling yourself) You can create a very unique and attractive design for your website.
“Why WordPress and not some easier website builders?” good question! Because with website builders, migration is near impossible, so if you ever feel like you’re not satisfied with your service, you cannot migrate (not for cheap anyway) to an alternative platform. This is a big mistake that many people make when they first build their first website and end up shelling more money on a new website a year or 2 later. Choose your website building platform carefully.
Once you’ve chosen your website building platform. It’s time to find your domain name and host. We offer plenty of packages that would suit any needs that you may have. www.vmotionhost.com
1) User Friendly Design
Before you start filling your website with content, look at it from the perspective of a fresh user, Is it user friendly? Will I find what I’m looking for without any issue? If the answer is no, then you’ll have to back to the drawing board! There are many things that can make a website easy to use. One of them being, simplistic menus that instantly catch your attention. Building on that you’d have very nicely placed categories for all your work and pages, even a search bar can make a massive difference.
That’s why the overall design is key to how well your website will be received. The easier it is for the person to find what they are looking for, the better! But that does not mean your website has to be boring. Remember, in some cases Less is More!
If you choose to get someone to design your website for you, don’t let them waver you with low prices. Look at their past work and portfolio to get a true vision of how your website will look. Don’t put a cheap price on what is going to be the face of your brand or company.
Your website should have great flexibility across a wide variety of devices, this is of course very dependent on how much you’re willing to pay and the level of expertise of the web designing company or individual. Preferably you’d want your website to flow freely across all devices and screen resolutions.
2) Time and Cost Effectiveness
While it’s important to have a good budget for your website, you don’t want to go too crazy with how much you spend on it. Research at least 10 different web designers that you’d like to get in contact with and make sure you’ve seen some of their previous work before hand.
Anything that is high quality requires time. But sometimes time is not an asset that is on your side at the moment. That’s where it becomes important to strike a balance between time and quality, and out of the 10 designers that you’ve chosen, see which ones specialise in providing faster responsive website design services. High quality output in the least span of time is the best option. High quality of course is subjective to many people so that will be entirely up to you.
3) Management
Let’s assume that your website is now up and running, you’ve just shelled out a good amount of money on the design and you’re ready to hit the ground running, but wait, how am I meant to post stuff on it?! This is where having simple maintenance and management is important and should never be overlooked when your website is being built.
It’s like when you’re buying a car, it may look like the top of the line Ferrari but you can’t even start it because the inside of it looks like a spaghetti bowl of wires. So therefore it may as well be useless to you.
Don’t be afraid to express your level of knowledge to your designer, many designers overlook this part unintentionally too so it’s a good idea to mention that so they can make your life a lot easier! This is where WordPress built sites excel because everything is in one nifty dashboard with a very simple layout for everything you could possibly want to add, update or remove from your website.
In conclusion, if you are a head strong individual who isn’t under any time constraints then we’d recommend that you embark on the remarkable journey that is creating your first website yourself. It’s incredibly satisfying once you’ve got everything working like you wanted it to. But if you are under time constraints and need everything done perfectly from the start, then hiring a web designer for you is the way to go.