No matter who you are or what you do - if you want to make an impact on the internet, you are going to need a website. However, a website isn’t just an easy fix - there are still processes you must take, and you need to give your all to each process. Why? Well - a half-baked website can be just as bad as not having one at all.
A website is so very important as it is your digital business card and will operate as a member of your team - technically there may be not better salesperson or marketing guru than your web presence. However, what you input directly affects the output. A good website will work for you, while a bad website may very well be working against you. If your website is failing, it might rest on your shoulders.
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So where can you can wrong with your website? Well - in the first instance, your domain name. While you or your business have a name in the real world, your website or domain name needs to link up with that. Say that you run a business known as `Best Boxes Worldwide` - but your domain is something completely different, say `We Ship Boxes.Com`, it can be extremely difficult for people to connect the dots and realize the two businesses are the same business. Sometimes, this effect is desired - but it can be confusing if not mastered. Where else can someone go wrong with a domain name? Well - having an unrelated domain name. If the name of your website is nothing like the business name or things you want to sell online - you can have some serious issues, especially if you are only retailing online. If your domain name doesn`t match or is misspelled, you can affect your businesses online efforts quite dramatically. You`ll also do some major damage if your domain name cannot be remembered - not everyone uses their history or bookmarks.
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A huge issue that any website can run into is a failure to be different. Many web hosting platforms have bland, but free, templates that are not eye-catching, and are possibly being used by other businesses using the same platform. In fact, there could be countless websites using the exact same template, and there may even be a site that serves the same purpose that you do and uses the same template that you use on your website. This can be a marketing disaster. While you can build your own site with a free template - you should opt to spend a bit of cash here. Not only can a custom design work better for your site, it actually makes it a little bit unique. Even if you stick with templates, premium options have features and better design that will catch the eye of website visitors. If you spend, you can get an agency on board who can create a custom design for you - or you can even buy artistic assets that you can use yourself to develop the website of your dreams. There are plenty of cost-effective design options out there that allow to make a serviceable site, but you should never set the bar at just `serviceable`, it isn`t good enough and you won`t be punished for going all out on a website.
Website design isn`t just about looking good - it is about being functional. If your website looks amazing but doesn`t actually work, you might do well by just canning the thing. A website is pointless if it cannot be used by visitors. The thing is - more people than ever are going to be accessing your website using interfaces and devices that are not a typical laptop or desktop computers. From widescreen tablets to phones and other devices. This means that you need to test your website on a range of devices before you give a thumbs up to the website design. If your website doesn`t work on mobile devices, you are going to miss out on a huge number of web users. You also need to think about web browsers. It isn`t just Firefox, Google Chrome or Safari that are used to access your website by web users - there are plenty more browsers out there. While making your site compatible with the major browsers will ensure the majority of visitors can use the site, you will still leave out others who use other web browsing options. On a wide scale, you`ll be coping with the majority, but you could be living out a big user portion.
It`s worth making sure your website meets all the needs of every browser, just in case. Probably the biggest mistake that you could make with a website is failing to ensure it doesn’t work on a wide range of internet browsing software and failing to ensure that the website can be browsed on a wide range of internet-capable devices.
While you or an agency or another web developer might be responsible for the construction of a website, it is worth asking if you are doing a good job with the `premises` of the website. The process that attaches a website to the web is hosting. Hosting companies offer space on the internet that is rented out to customers looking to carve out their own space. The domain and files are attached here to create a web presence. However, there is so, so much more to it than simply a space on the web.
There are a lot of things to consider when you choose a host for your website.A good hosting company will ensure that your web presence is fast and stable - a bad one, or one with flaws will slow down the operating speeds of your website. In essence, if you`ve ensured that your site is functional, operational and looks good - this work won`t mean much if a hosting site is holding your web presence back. It will mean even less if the hosting site is actually crippling your business.
Finding a good hosting service is hard work, with the proof being in the pudding and all, but this BlueHost review by Jerry should be able to point you in the right direction. You want speed; you want stability, and everything else is a bonus. Speed is demanded by modern users so that you might value this above all. Stability shouldn`t be overlooked, so you want server uptime as well. You need to be able to keep in good contact with your hosting company as they are pretty much the `landlord` and should solve any issues as you are paying them for the privilege.
One such problem is space. If your site is getting a lot of visitors, it could get overloaded - meaning you need to be able to contact your hosting company and pay for more space. This is a useless endeavor if the hosting company are just as unresponsive as your full-to-the-brim servers now are. You need speed, in all ways from your hosting company and if you`re stuck with a bad host - your customers and visitors will think that you run a bad website.
There are plenty of ways that you can go wrong with a website - but you’ll have a lot on your side if you educate yourself about the key processes behind web design, namely design itself, optimization and of course, hosting. Websites can encounter a whole bunch of crippling issues if they avoid mastering basics. Get the foundations in place, and you’ll have something - namely a website that actually works for you!
