How To Make Your Own Website – Part 2
Before you get too involved, jump right in and get started to make your own website, I recommend we take a minute to talk about the content a bit more first. It’s an easy subject to skim over, but many a would-be Webmaster will simply freeze at this point.
What do I put my site? What should I say or share? How can I be sure I targeted what people are searching for? Each of these are questions you might ask, depending on the type of internet presence you want, or the goals you have in mind for your web pages.
What do I put on my site?
This is a question you might ask if you’re an established business. You want (or know you need) a web presence and have made a command decision to get one going.
You’re “IT” guy knows how to get a site hosted, or knows you can probably do that through your current email service as a “freebie” for signing up with them; (see make your own email for a cheaper way to get email if that describes how your company email got started).
Anyway, maybe he even has a template, knows how to get one, or is savvy enough to recommend WordPress. All good – but what next. You have the platform and the technical “know how” to get a few web pages live – but what next?
That’s why we need to think this through first. Define a purpose for you site. Is it for your future customers to see what you do, what you provide or what you sell? Is it for your current customers to track shipments, or have ready access to time sensitive information about the project or program you provide for them? Or is it just to have a site up so you can point to it on correspondence, but really have no sales goals for it?
Depending on what you decide, the next steps you take to make your own website will get clearer. Map it out. Define what you want to show or say (or both). If you need to be a top ranked site in Google, at least look up SEO on the internet before you start asking for a consultant. That alone can save you a ton of money. In fact, the articles and posts you find on this site will help you do much of what a consultant will charge a bundle for – for free, or at least just at the cost of time for you or your employees to learn how.
We’ll discuss the other two questions on the next post …