Where to begin when you need a website? Here are a few questions to get you started!
Will you design your own website?
It is possible to design your own website. You just have to make sure you have the time to learn how to properly build it. From colors, layout, optimization, and SEO, there are several things that are key to building a successful website; a successful website is what you will receive when hiring a professional. If you have the time to learn how to build a successful website, then you should give it a shot!
What are your building platform options? A few clients I’ve assisted have began with Wix. Wix is very user friendly and I compare it to Microsoft Publisher. A forewarning though, it can get complicated, therefore you should watch their videos and read their tutorials before making the decision to build a website using wix or any other platform for that matter. Wix has several tutorials and guides for you to use as resources as you’re building a site, BUT don’t forget, when you hire a real web designer, they typically have years of experience and knowledge when it comes to everything website. So this is a time to remember the little phrase “you get what you pay for.” Wix may have been less expensive, but your time isn’t priceless, will the site look as good as your competitors professionally designed sites, will one be able to tell that your site was built by wix and will it be optimized for SEO and mobile? Those are many questions you should ask yourself when using Wix or any other platform.
Squarespace is one of my lease favorite platforms. I would choose Wix before I choose Squarespace. Squarespace is a lot like Wix, in the fact that you have to pay for your squarespace website, are limited to editing code, have a limited selection of plugins- free and paid for, depending on your plan and if you want to have an ecommerce site, you will pay transaction fees, it’s not as user friendly to build with as wix, and you have a limited number of free templates to choose from.
WordPress is my favorite! It’s totally free, it’s the #1 website builder, 10x more free templates to choose from, 100% customizable, unlimited pages, and a support and knowledge base that is free!
Did you buy the domain?
If you don’t already have a business name and are brainstorming and have a few picked, we suggest that you make sure their domains are not already owned by another company in your state or another state. If that happened, you wouldn’t be able to buy the domain address that is the exact name of your business.
If you already have a business name and are ready to have a website built you have two options: 1. See if your domain is available by clicking here and if so, purchase it! 2. Contact Weblast Marketing and we’ll purchase it and your hosting account too!
In order for a website to go live, it needs to be hosted. Do you have a hosting account?
Every website that you go to is hosted, that’s how it’s able to be found on a search. Now that you have a domain, you need to obtain a hosting account. Not all hosting accounts are the same and you have several options.
What you want from a hosting provider?
Caching, fast load times, high uptime, great support, free security add-ons, free CDN, free SSL certificates, and a good amount of storage space.
Once again you have two options: 1. You can purchase a hosting account by clicking here or 2. Contact Weblast Marketing and we’ll purchase it for you!
