Are you thinking of making a website and don’t know where to start?
We give you a series of keys that will help you to do so. Take note of all of them and you will learn easily and you will achieve it.
Steps to choose the website
The first thing you have to take into account are the steps you must take to choose the type of website. Only when you know what you need will you have to go with it. This is the previous step but it is crucial to avoid mistakes.
Think about your goals
You have to assess what your objectives are on a digital level. If you want to increase visibility through the web and reach more people, if what you are looking for is to improve your reputation, while you work on improving your brand image and online reputation, if you want to increase the sales of your products or services.
It may also be that what you are looking for is to expand the customer base . For this, the creation of a website is used in which newsletters are generated, emailing campaigns are carried out, etc.
As you can see, there can be several objectives that you have when creating a website. Determine which are the main ones in order to start working on achieving them.
What is your target audience?
It is important that you know your target audience to also see what type of portal best suits that audience. It is not the same to address companies as the end customer. It all depends on the type of business you have.
How much time do you have
It is not the same to have time as to barely have it. For this reason, it is important that before delving into the realization of a web portal, you see the amount of time you have and that you can dedicate to designing your web page. You can choose to make a simple but well built and regularly updated web portal or a very complete one that hardly requires updates but whose construction is somewhat more complex.
What do you need
It is also crucial that you are clear about the static pages that you are going to need. This will depend, fundamentally, on the type of business you are dealing with. For example, you will have to see if you need an area of personalized forms so that you can request quotes, contact users, fill out surveys, if you need a reservation calendar, an area to publish customer opinions, a FAQ section to answer the most frequently asked questions, a blog, an email area, etc.
Types of web pages
With all the data mentioned above, it is important to consider that there are these types of web pages .
Choosing yours will depend precisely on what you need.
- A corporate or business website that responds to large companies or SMEs NGO and/or non-profit websites
- Online stores
- Briefcase
- personal pages
- Blogging
- Service websites
- Education and e-learning websites
Steps to make your own website
Now that you are clear about the criteria that you must follow to choose the web portal that you need, it is important that you know step by step how you can make your own website. We give you the keys.
The domain name
The first thing you have to have is the name of your web domain. If you already have a company, then it will have to be the name of the company in most of the times. In any case, it never hurts to think about different options and potential website names. You can also check options through a domain verification platform where you can perform searches.
Finding a good domain name is much more important than it seems. You should always choose a domain that is .com, since it is the most popular option and it will also be the easiest domain type to remember. Do not forget to register misspelled and similar versions of your domain name because with this you will ensure that all traffic reaches your web portal.
As much as possible you have to try to keep the domain short and easy to remember, since domains that are too long can be more difficult to memorize. Avoid using hyphens or symbols whenever possible because it will be more difficult to remember.
Choose the hosting
Depending on the size you want your web portal to have, you will have to select the type of hosting .
You can generally find three different options on the market.
shared hosting It is a perfect option for medium and small web portals. It is a type of server that hosts the websites of multiple users. All sites use the same set of resources for the same physical server. The advantage is that the prices are usually more affordable, but they also have specific limitations.
Cloud hosting. In the case of cloud hosting, it is a type of hosting that what you are looking for is to replicate the simplicity of shared hosting while you can enjoy all the power of a virtual server. With these options, backup copies of your website are kept on several physical servers that work together. So it’s a very safe option because in the event that one of the servers fails, the others in the cluster will be the ones to ensure that everything continues to work correctly. It is the perfect option if you consider that you will have large traffic spikes.
A VPS is a virtual private server and is a unique web hosting alternative that gives the
user more control and freedom. However, certain skills are required to control this type of
servers and usually have a higher price.
Choose the platform for your website
When you know what type of server you are going to have, it will be time to select the type of platform. There are those that function as content management systems. which are perfect if what you are going to build is a blog or a web portal in which many articles are published. Here are options such as those offered by WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, among others.
Through ecommerce scripts. This type of software is the one you should opt for if you are going to have an electronic commerce. Some of the most prominent are PrestaShop, WooCommerce, and Magento, among others.
There are platforms for building websites in a few steps that can be the ideal option if you do not have too much knowledge about it. It will be the easiest way to create a website without having to have programming knowledge. They are made up of a feature-rich drag-and-drop interface that allows for great customization.
Websites made by you. If you know something about programming you can opt for this type of option. Although it requires some time and faith, effort, the customization capacity will be total and the main characteristic for your project to go ahead.
Do you need plugins?
Virtually all the interfaces already have plugins, but WordPress continues to be the platform with which it counts the most. Through plugins, a website can be fully customized without having to learn programming. You can find plugins for various purposes that can range from adding a security barrier to sharing the content of the web portal.
Therefore, the advantages of using this type of WordPress pluginsThey are betting on usability. With these tools, users are helped to better navigate between web pages while optimizing each part of it. You also have access to a series of additional tools such as the introduction of social network buttons, SEO improvement of the website, etc. All this achieving greater performance, since they help to increase speed, security and user management.
Rely on the navigation menu
When making the web page it is important that you do it based on usability and accessibility, hence you have to base it on a navigation menu. For this, for example, you can optimize your menus and widgets.
Always thinking that the menu you create is one capable of helping visitors navigate between pages or that it is separated for different locations but, above all, is intuitive.
