So you have a business idea and are thinking what next?  Creating a website is a lot like writing a business plan it really makes you define and analyse what you are offering, to who, where, for how much… sound familiar? Yeap that is what you do in your business plan too!

A great website in todays’ social networking society is a must.  You can link your website url to your status updates or comments.  So when you get a recommendation you can immediately lead a potential client to your virtual doorstep.

So I have complied the following to help you on your website journey:

The 10 do’s and don’ts of creating a website

1. Don’t get the cheapest possible and think this will do.  I promise you if your business takes off you will want to move this and change that, add a shop and then you realise you have tied yourself to a website with a fixed template that you have no flexibility to change. Then you find your knight in shining website design armor and you have to start over.  Start as you mean to go on and stop wasting valuable time and money!!
2. Do hire a web designer you actually like as you are going to be friends for a while talking possibly every weekday for a month for a basic website.
3. Do prepare a solid brief (description of what you are trying to achieve) website designers are not mind readers (although we do have other superpowers).
4. Do find about three websites you like on the internet and provide them with the brief so the web designer can get a look and feel for what you are hoping to achieve.
5. Do your content homework.  Most web designers do not include searching for images or finding the text content for your site.  They will charge you by the hour which is fine but you can do this yourself if you want to save $$$.  Ask your web designer for their recommendations on stock image websites and ask them for a reasonably priced copywriter if you need help to fine tune the message you are trying to get across.  You will get your website a lot quicker too if you sort this side of things out.
6. Don’t be scared to say something if your website is not going in the direction that you want it too.  It is hard but a good web designer should make this easy for you to do.  Speak up and ask for it to be changed sooner rather than later.
7. Do ask your web designer about hosting options before you sign up as some hosting services do not support image sliders or other cool features you may want to have on your website.  They may host your site for you or recommend based on their experiences.
8. Do find out if you can update your content once the website has gone live and also ask about training on how to do it.  The more you update the better your search engine optimisation (SEO) will be.  Having an excuse to update like a blog page is always good practise.
9. Do talk about search engine optimisation with your web designer.  Great organic search engine optimisation is achievable but these things take time and patience.  You may not ever get a higher position organically than your competitor because they have had a website for longer and also have a great web designer helping them too.  You need to make sure your keywords are available within your website for the search engines like Google, Bing & Pintrest to pick up.  You also have to validate your website with the main search engines.  To make sure you do beat that pesky competitor you can opt for pay per click by Google Ad Words.   They estimate a yearly cost of $800 per year to maintain a top position on the first page.
10. Make sure you set up your social media platform profiles so they look professional.  Get your graphic or web designer to help you if you are not sure how to do this. Don’t forget to sign up for Google Analytics so you can see how people are reacting to your blogs, specials & social media status updates.

That is about it for today will be back with more secrets soon peeps!