If you’ve decided to start a website or a blog you may be faced with a lot of questions. How do you go about it? What steps do you need to take? Is there any particular order they have to be done in?
Is it too complicated for me? The whole idea can be big, scary, and overwhelming. If you let that fear paralyze you, you’ll never get started.
Thankfully, it is a lot easier than you might think as long as you follow some simple rules. Others who blazed the trail before you can offer a lot of advice on things they wished they’d done before they started their first blog. By learning from their mistakes you can jump-start your blog or website.
1] Easy Steps
Content
You need to have plenty of content right away, at least five blog posts at a minimum. If people don’t find anything on your blog they won’t keep coming back.
Work At It
Websites and blogs don’t build themselves. They don’t maintain themselves either. You have to do the work of posting new content, maintaining the site so it works smoothly, and building your brand. Ford is an instantly recognizable brand name. Your goal should be for your brand to be just as recognizable as that one.
Good Photos
You need some snazzy, eye-catching photos on the landing page of your site. If you don’t have a good camera, you can find plenty of high-quality shots available online for free or for a nominal charge. Use them.
2] Hiring A Web Designer
If you decide to hire a web designer to build your site for you, there are some questions you should ask before hiring them.
Responsive Design
Many people use their smartphones for surfing the web when they are away from the house (at work, school, etc.) then use a tablet, laptop, or PC when they get home.
Because of this, websites need to be able to resize themselves on the fly to fit whatever screen size people are using. Make sure the web company you hire has experience creating responsive websites.
Design Input
Does the company offer you ideas and suggestions on what your site should look like? Experienced companies will have all kinds of suggestions on how to spruce up the appearance of your blog. You don’t have to accept their ideas of course, but if they don’t offer any, it may be a sign of inexperience on their part.
Experience In Your Area
Does the company have any steps for starting a blog and websites in your area of expertise? Just because someone is a whiz at building websites doesn’t mean they know anything about selling flowers, fixing engines, or selling homemade goods and services. You need someone who knows both; building websites and your area of interest.
3] Traffic, Advertising, and Sales
Sometimes you need a web designer who has specific skills in bringing traffic to your site, helping you with SEO optimization or advertising on Facebook. In that case, you need someone like digitrio to help you put it all together.
They bring years of experience to the table working with SEO optimization, search engine marketing (SEM), display advertising with banners, web design, and more.
4] Your Website
Your website is yours. Regardless of how you build it, make sure it reflects your personality and character. If looking at your website or blog doesn’t remind you of yourself, something is wrong. You’ll start feeling like you are working for the website instead of it working for you.
Don’t take any advice from anyone on the way your site looks if it doesn’t fit your personal style. Take their advice for everything that is “under the hood” so to speak. Listen to them on how to make the site responsive to different screen sizes but keep control of what shows up on the screen. That’s your content and your ideas, not theirs.
5] Know The Goal
Are you building a website or blog to make money or is it a hobby? If you want your site to be a money maker, that’s self-explanatory. But even if it’s just a hobby, you still want people to see what you have to say and offer. Otherwise, why would you go to the trouble of building the site?
People with antique cars take them to car shows, not to make money, but to show them off. That is what your hobby website should try to accomplish too, to show it off.
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