OK, so you’ve given some thought to the goals of your website, and you are now ready to get started. In this article I summarise the basics you need to be aware of when it comes to getting a website built, live and working. This is just a fairly broad overview, but I do break down each aspect further in later articles.

1. Goals for the website
2. Domain name (website name)
3. Design (look& feel) of the website
4. Development of the website
5. Hosting of the website
6. Analytics and measuring
7. Online marketing of your website

1. Goals of your website. This was discussed in greater detail here

2. Domain name
The domain name is the name of your website. This would be seen like this, www.domain.co.za, or www.yourwebsitename.co.za. This is important as it will be how everyone finds you and what they type in to find your website. Choosing a name is difficult, as there are so many options. You can go with your actual company name, you can choose to go with words that describe what you do (such as www.wesellcheese.co.za), or you can go with something completely different. It all basically depends on your imagination, and of course, what is still available, as someone may have already registered the name you want. You can see if the name you want is available by going here, and typing in the name you would like. This is also the place where you can register your domain name (or the person building the site for you can), and South African domain names typically cost around R75 per year. If you would like a .com domain name, these typically cost around $10 per year. For a more detailed article click here: choosing a domain name

3. The design (look & feel) of your website
This is the fun part. Even though you will most likely be getting a website designer to make your website for you, it is very useful (to you and to them) if you are able to provide them with some ideas you have on the design. This ensures that they have a direction to go in, and that your expectations are met. The easiest way to do this is to simply look around and take note of a few websites that you like the look of. Then combine this will some ideas you may have regarding design elements and colours and send this to your designer to get started. They should be able to create a mock-up for you from this, which you can further refine until you are happy with.

4. Development of the website
Development of the website here refers specifically to what system or code the website developer is going to use to make your website. There are many options for this, however we have always favoured having our website developed in WordPress. WordPress is the most popular CMS (content management system) in the world. A content management system is simply a system that enables websites to be built quicker than normal, and also allows the user (in this case you), so update and make content changes to the website easily. This means that if you want to add new articles to the website, or change some existing information on the website, you could simply do this yourself, instead of needing to hire (and pay) the developer to do it for you. It doesn’t really matter what the developer uses to develop the website, as long as at the end of the day you get a website you are happy with, and that you are able to use as you envisioned, however our recommendation would be to request the developer uses WordPress.

5. Hosting of the website
Hosting is basically a place where you can upload all of your files and folders (which make up the images and content) of your website, so that people can view them. It is simply the place where your website is “stored” so that it can be seen. Hosting various depending on who does it for you, how big your website is, and how many people visit it. For a small website with low visitor numbers you should expect to pay around R99 per month. Read more about hosting in South Africa

6. Analytics and measuring
This is an important aspect of any website. By installing some form of analytics you will be able to see a range of attributes and data. These include the number of people visiting your website; how long they stay for; what pages they look at; how they find you etc. Knowing these metrics will let you know how popular your website is and whether more people are using it as time goes by. There are quite a few analytics options, but one of the best, also happens to be completely free. It is called Google Analytics, and to use it all you need is a free gmail account. Read more about Analytics

7. Online marketing of your website
This is a more advanced stage of your website and one you would only start looking at once the website is completed, live and you are measuring the visitors to it. It basically refers to increasing the number of targeted visitors to your website, and increasing the amount they purchase from you. There are a number of online channels used for online marketing, and these include SEO (search engine optimisation), PPC (pay per click), social media, email marketing, affiliate marketing, conversion rate optimisation, content marketing etc. These will all be discussed in later steps to ensure you understand them and know which ones you should focus on and use for your website.

I hope that this article has given you a good overall picture of what is required when you are considering getting a website developed.