Can I design a website for free?

12 steps on website design to avoid problems!

But be careful, a poorly managed website design project can quickly turn into a disaster.

In fact, if the project is not well organized, you risk;

Spending a lot of time

A lot of money

On an ugly site

To be very upset

In this article, we explain the steps to follow to avoid problems when developing a website.

1. Determine the purpose of website design

Before you start designing a website, take some time to think about the tasks you would like a new website to perform.

Here are some tasks that your digital site employee can do:

Present your work and make a good impression

Attracting potential customers (new customers)

Communication with potential customers (for example, opening hours)

Allow your customers to shop online

Send leads to customer relationship management

View Area for members only

Have an intranet or publish information to its customers (such as reports, etc.).)

Allow candidates to apply online

Setting website design goals will help you ask the right questions, get reliable ratings and avoid surprises during the project.

2. Understanding your ideal customer

The first mistake to avoid when designing a website is to create a website for yourself!

Let's be honest no one cares that your business has been around for several years. The site visitor is not interested in the abundance of speech on your site.

He is interested in only one thing..."What should I get out of here? Or " what is it for me?""

This should be your website for your ideal customer:

I'm nice, intuitive/efficient, with good ergonomics, and I get it right to the point;

I understand your problem and I sympathize with you;

I've helped other people like you deal with this problem;

Here's how I did it;

Here is the guide;

Here are our services/products;

Here is more information about us;

Here is more information relevant to you;

Here's how to contact me;

Here's the next step;

To do this, you need to know the ideal client by heart, namely:

His fears;

Emotions;

Aspirations;

Craving for food;

Problems ;

3. Create a list of required features before creating a new website!

Functions are simple actions that can be performed on your new website(for example, online payment).

Creating a list of jobs makes it easier to estimate the cost of creating a website and choose the most suitable technology (software for creation).

A very simple Google paper list (or Excel for the cool ones) to do your job. Make the list as simple as possible and use notes or comments to enter details.

4. Think of a plan to promote your website

It is important to understand the following: having a website does not mean that you will have visitors.

Without qualified visitors, you will not have online customers.

What is an eligible visitor? This is my fictional talking business manager.

This is the person who wants to get your product/service and can afford it.

Attracting the attention of qualified visitors is not free. Thus, the promotion of your website for this purpose pays off.

5. Plan a budget of at least 500-1000 USD per month to promote your website.

They are not cheap, so make sure the website will convince your visitor to contact you.

Here are some channels to attract visitors :

Online advertising (advertising on Google, YouTube, Facebook, AdWords, etc.);

Natural link to a website ( SEO; the appearance of your site in search results);

Social media content;

Advertisement on the radio;

Attach ;

Television advertising;

......

It is clear that if the goal is not to attract new potential customers, then this step has nothing to do with the design of the site.

6. Create a prototype before developing a website design!

Before building a house, we consult with a person of important position: an architect. Their role is to understand your needs and make home plans so that living in it is safe (and Project Safe and budget-conscious construction).

Creating a website is the same thing. So consider the following before you start developing a website:

Number of pages on your site;

Organize each page;

Links between pages;

Visitor trip;

At a minimum, you will cope with a sheet of paper and a pencil for this task. But ideally, it is better to use such tools as a wireframe. cc or Axor, Figma, balsamic…

7. Create visual content

Here is a crucial step for a website design project. For a ready-made website, whether it's redesigning a website, Creating a showcase site, or an e-commerce store: content (video, text, images) is important.

If this step is handled incorrectly, problems may arise

Here are the mistakes to avoid:

Content creation within the company (delays the project because SMEs do not have time to write a text)

Let the content be created by someone who does not understand the internet or marketing (content has a very large impact on the visual image).

An attempt to achieve perfection = in solution = an expensive projector disturbs the agency🙂

Lack of time needed to approve layouts (leads to a lot of back and forth shifts later in the project)

The worst: not creating graphic forms and trying to create a website without visual elements (fatal error)

8. Create a search engine optimization plan

This map contains text that helps Google understand the content on each page. This improves your site's position in search results. This :

Meta tags

Alternative texts for images

Image names

Structure of visible headers (H1, H2, H3...)

Site integration in Google Search Module

This stage of website development is often forgotten, and therefore many small and medium-sized business sites are not optimized.

9. Creating graphic novels

After nine stages, we finally got to the stage everyone was waiting for: visible!

Before explaining this step to you, let me start by saying that there are two ways to create a visual design for a website:

1. Theme customization-you customize an existing template according to your company's visual style;

2. Original design-you creates a 100% original visual image in your photo.

Differences between them: customization and price

Yes, in order for the site to be very beautiful, modern, and 100% consistent with your brand, a competent designer should spend time creating a visual design of 5-10 pages:

Home page design = 5 to 15 hours depending on project type and number of edits

Other pages design = about 15 to 30 hours for all pages

10. Website design (development)

This step consists in converting graphic forms into web pages. There are many techniques.

The most popular at the moment is WordPress, a content management system (CMS), very suitable for developing a website with adaptive design. Any websites that work on tablets and mobile phones.

If, in order to save money, you want to make your own website, avoid free tools such as Wix, square space ... Because these tools retain ownership of the site. This makes it very difficult to scale the site and causes other marketing problems.

There are many other techniques for creating websites, such as Joomla, Drupal, Jimdo... Which we do not necessarily recommend.

Instead, use WordPress, which is free and can be easily installed by some hosting companies such as Bluehost.

Install WordPress in one click, and buy a template (template) that suits you (we recommend buying your theme, installing the template, and configuring it (good luck!).

11. Quality assurance

The idea is to make sure that there are no functional, visual, or textual deviations in the main browsers.

Due to unnecessary round trips, low-priority interchangeable microphones, and poorly organized emails, this task can quickly turn into a nightmare and lead to a significant loss of time

We recommend using a simple and focused process.

12. Website posting

This step is to launch the site at its final location. This is web hosting. This is preceded by the purchase of a place from a hosting provider. This task can take from 2 to 5 hours depending on the size of the site.

Among other things, it is necessary :

Create a copy of the old site and one of the sites to be moved

Site transfer

Do a test to make sure everything works (especially for purchases and models).

Make your site known by search engines

Install Google Analytics

Update or create a Google My Business page (if you have a physical site)

Install the site in the Google Search Console

Skills required for website development

To create your own website or even a professional website, you need to have the following skills :

Patience

Marketing strategy

Design

Web development

Persuasive speech

Website SEO (even keyword research)

Project management

Server/domain name Management

Nice Dadou

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