Website planning 101: The beginner’s guide to creating a functional site

Are you launching a business soon? It’s such an exciting time, with the prospect of a new enterprise and potential financial freedom in your future. But there are also so many things to consider when launching a business, from writing a business plan to arranging your goods to sell or figuring out what services you want to offer.

Part of any functioning business in this day and age means also having an excellent website, but how exactly do you achieve this? Your website needs to be professional, look great and be user-friendly.

This article will serve as a comprehensive guide to planning out your website and ensuring it’s functional.

What you need to consider when planning your website

There are a few things that you need to consider from the get-go. The first thing to consider is your customers and their needs. What do they need when accessing your website? Ideally, they should be able to easily buy your products, book your services, or get in touch with you if you’re a professional offering services or advice.

You’ll also need to prioritise what’s important, as your website should contain everything you need to offer a seamless experience to your customers. But it can’t be so big that things get lost or people have difficulty navigating it. You’ll need to think about streamlining the website design process so you can launch your website faster, which leads us to our next tip.

Work with a website design company

We need to stress the importance of working with a website design company in Melbourne or another area that’s local to you, to ensure you can create your website with minimal stress. A local agency can work with you closely to understand your business goals, as well as collaborate with you to design an excellent, functional website to help you meet them.

They can ensure your website is user-friendly, optimised for search engines, and doesn’t have any annoying bugs or glitches that will cause people to navigate away. Ideally, you want people to stay on your website until they’ve bought something or contacted you to discuss your services.

What platform to use

Before you commence the design and development of your business website, you’ll need to choose the right platform for your website and your needs.

The most popular options available on the market currently include content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, website builders like Wix and Squarespace, and from-scratch development using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for those with technical expertise and experience, like the company you might choose to help you develop your website.

If you’re doing this yourself, though, you should probably consider WordPress, as its intuitive drag-and-drop function makes it easy for a novice to create content blocks and populate them with information about your business and product or service offerings.

Domain and hosting

Now, let’s discuss domain names and website hosting for some additional information about creating a website for your business.

Picking a domain name

Your domain name is the term given for your website’s address location on the Internet. It is essential for creating a professional appearance. You should choose a domain name that is concise, easy to remember for users, and reflects your unique brand or content.

Choosing a hosting provider for your website

Web hosting is where your website is situated on the Internet. Choose a reliable hosting provider that matches your business’ needs in terms of website load speed, budget, and customer service.

Shared hosting can be a good place to start for beginners, while more significant, high-traffic sites may require dedicated hosting, which you can consider as your business scales up.

Hold off on design until you have a plan

It is easy to get ahead of yourself when creating your website, and to become excited about getting stuck into the meaty part of your website design process. But the first thing you want to think about is how your website will look. In reality, many business owners begin to look at visual templates and website themes before they have even figured out what their website needs to achieve.

Rather than brute-forcing your business site into a pretty template, take a step back and design it around your currently available visual elements, images, and various brand assets, as well as the crucial information you need to get across to your customers.

Making a plan for your website content and information from the start will assist you in optimising the design elements around your business, your unique brand, and your customers and their needs.

A word about fonts

Just like the visual elements of your website, the typography that you choose can play a key role in evoking feelings in your customers. When choosing the ideal fonts for your website, there are a few things to consider.

Like all the other visual elements on your site, your choice of font should match your branding and style. You may want to browse different types of typefaces to find one that reflects your unique brand personality, whether your business is youthful and contemporary or has a more traditional, conservative approach.

The three main types of fonts include:

• Sans serif: This is a standard, block-like typography without small lines at the ends of each character.
• Serif: These are fonts with a small line joined to the ends of each letter.
• Script: This has a more elegant, fancy feel, with each letter connecting fluidly from one to the next.

Consider a viable launch

The great thing about web design is that a website is always evolving. Your site will always be a work in progress. Even after you launch it, you can gather feedback from customers, friends and family and continuously evolve your site. It should grow with your business as you scale up.

It’s tempting to delay launching because your website isn’t quite perfect or ready yet. However, it’s vital to get your website up and running sooner rather than later. Focus on the minimum level of functionality for operations and the key content your website needs to include for launch. Then, plan to improve your website over time as your business grows and evolves.

This article has covered website planning 101 and is the ultimate beginner’s guide to creating a functional site for business needs.