Launching a new website with an online business website builder like IconoSites.com is very simple and is done in minutes. On the other hand, procuring your content – i.e. deciding on how many web pages to have and how to name them, writing your text, and taking/gathering professional images to put on your website - is actually the difficult part. Who knew!
We’ve put together this step-by-step article to show you everything you need to prepare to setup your new business website:
Phase 1: Name Your Pages, Gather Your Images….and Go Live!
- Name Your Pages – Start a new document in Microsoft Word (or your word processor of choice) and create a list of all the web pages you want. If you want any sub-pages, put them underneath the main page as a bullet point.
- Write Your Text Content – For each page in your list, type out the text content on the same document. If there is anywhere in the content that you would like to place a specific image, video, or anything else, leave yourself a note and specify the name of the image/video.
- Gather the Images You Need – Make a list of all the images that you need for each page. Don’t forget to include your main header image which is the point of focus on the page. Looking at this list, determine which photos you already have prepared and mark them as such. Then, determine which photos you can take on your own and do the same. Finally, determine which photos you will want to buy from a stock photo website. Once you have your stock photo list, go to either shutterstock, fotalia, or istockphoto and find them. Make sure you download images with a minimum width of 960px if you plan to use the image as the main banner image on your website.
- Go Live! - don’t complicate things any further. If you picked some good images and wrote some good content, your site should look great and should be ready to “go live”. You can and should start using it to benefit your business. Many people get bogged down with fine tuning every minute detail of their website and fail to launch it for several months. Every month they operate without a live website, they lose. The search engines aren’t crawling the website yet, your customes have nowhere to do any research on your company, and the list goes on and on. The fine tuning of your website comes in Phase 2. When Phase 1 is completed, launch your site.
Key Advice for Phase 1
- Have an easy-to-find Contact Page – website visitors always look for a contact page when they feel the need to contact you. Therefore, make sure you have one, and make sure its easy to find. Preferably, put it in your main navigation. Look at where we put our Contact page:
- Clearly State What Your Company Does – this is probably the most common mistake you find on websites today. You visit a website, and it is not clear what the company does. This should be a one sentence statement and it should be located in the header of your website so that it appears on every page. That way if visitors find your website through any page other than your home page, they immediately know what you do. We suggest that you put it in your logo slogan or on the opposite side of logo, in the header content area. Look at where we put our one sentence summary:
Phase 2: Fine Tune Your New Business Website
- Get a Custom Logo – Every IconoSites website comes with a beautiful logo font that matches the theme of your website. This way, if you don’t have a logo, you can still take your website live and look good. If or when you decide to get a custom logo, you have several options. If you are looking to build a logo free or on the cheap, check out our article on HOW & WHERE TO GET A BUSINESS LOGO DESIGN | FREE & CHEAP OPTIONS FOR YOUR WEBSITE.
- Customize Your Design or Get a Custom Design – If you feel the need to change some colors, background images or implement a totally custom design, you’ll need to hire someone familiar with HTML & CSS. Our system is so easy that anyone can do it. Find someone on Craigslist or anywhere else. You certainly don’t need to customize any designs, but you can.
- Add some Add-On Apps – If you want to add some cool elements to your website, check out our Recommended Add-Ons. You can add a contact form FREE. You can add a professional photo gallery FREE. You can add Google Analytics FREE. You can add a customizable toolbar FREE (courtesy of Wibiya), with links to your twitter, facebook, youtube, and other social platforms, making it easy for your website visitors to connect with you. Check out our list of Recommended Add-on Apps at IconoSites.
- Implement Search Engine Optimization – This enables your website to be found when people are searching in Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and other search engines. There’s quite a bit to know about “SEO”, and we’ve written an incredible blog post to help you make it happen. When you’re ready to take this on, please read our thee-part series: WANT TO SEO YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE? I’LL SAVE YOU TONS.
Any other questions? Let us know in the comments area below, and we’ll respond.