To date, the internet is the largest market in which we can move. If we need something, we can find it online. Whatever the sector, whether it is broad or niche, there is certainly an interested clientele. Creating a professional website means opening a shop in this gigantic network of contacts, not only by displaying your products and services, but also by being easily found by the interested target.
Investing in a website means focusing on visibility, higher traffic and, with the right steps, a growth in customers.
Creating a professional website: where to start
The path that leads to the creation of a professional website must be studied in detail to achieve the objectives for which it was created. When you want to create a perfect website, you can come up against different types of mechanics and complexities. Many factors must be considered, including:
- target
- brand identity
- budget
- purpose of the site
- sector
To gather all this information, an in-depth preliminary analysis is a must. You need to know which market you are moving into, who your competitors are and what strengths and weaknesses they have.
But what are the 5 basic steps to create a professional website?
To build a professional website it is important to have good foundations: the role of Brand Identity
The website, therefore, is a showcase. It can simply serve to display the company, or as a contact channel for the sale of products and services. There are many types.
Before starting to build the interior of the store, it is therefore essential to understand what to put inside. What are the services and products offered? How do they want to communicate? To build a professional website that fully reflects the brand, you need to identify all the useful information to follow later.
The Brand Identity includes, for example, the company's vision and mission, the tone of voice by which it would like to communicate, its logo, the main colors, its history. It is about building a sort of road map to follow for each step.
1. Purchase domain and hosting site
A website's domain is simply its address. These are the words that follow the famous “www”. Each website is represented by a unique domain. For this you need to buy it. This way, you gain ownership of the name and prevent others from using it. Furthermore, it is good to remember to always check the renewal of the purchase, to avoid losing ownership of the name.
As far as hosting is concerned, however, it can be defined as the physical space that hosts the website. There are various hosting services with different features. They can guarantee security, a certain loading speed and other parameters of this kind. It all depends on your needs and budget. We use HubSpot, an all-in-one CRM platform which, among other functions, also has hosting.
If hosting is the location where you can build your shop, then the domain is the address.
2. Decide on the site tree
Now that you have an address and a place, you need to figure out how to display your products. What criteria are used? What's the best split? To create the best structure, it is important to define a site tree, i.e. the layout of the pages and the links between them. What are the main pages? What do they lead to?
Depending on how the tree is made, with the main pages above and the secondary ones connected below them, the site menu is also created. The layout must make it easy for the user to navigate through the site. A complex construction could result in them getting frustrated and leave the website to look for the information or products elsewhere.
3. Choose the theme that best represents the website
The third step is to choose the theme of the website, i.e. how it will look. Many programs for simple website creation have pre-set themes. Others, create them from scratch.
Ekeria has a team of programmers who also take care of creating the best themes for the clients, so that they adapt as much as possible to their needs. The appearance of the site is fundamental. This is the "face" by which the company presents itself.
4. Create valuable content for customers
Now that the shop has a place, an address, an internal layout, and its own look, we need to move on to creating the contents with which to fill it.
This content must be of interest to the target you want to attract. For this reason, before starting to produce them, it is necessary to carry out an analysis of the most frequently asked questions of users in the sector, analyzing search volumes, the difficulty of positioning oneself in the first pages of the results, and another series of parameters which fall under the umbrella of SEO, Search Engine Optimization.
Content can fill website pages, but often professional sites also have a blog that is updated on a regular basis. In this way, the site continues to be active, users are shown to be constantly updated and have more points of contact with the identified target.
5. Create CTAs, or calls to action, that convert
The objectives of a website can be the most diverse. Selling a product or service, collecting customer information, getting them to subscribe to a newsletter, or even making them download a pdf. Therefore, a website can also attract as many customers as possible, but if it doesn't lead them to do what it was created for, all the work is useless.
The last step to create a professional website, therefore, is to insert calls to action that convert, i.e., lead users to perform the desired action. Calls to action must be consistent with the tone of voice, appealing but not excessive. They must fully adapt to the Brand Identity decided at the beginning.
Precautions after creating a professional website
It is always good, after completing the creation of the site, to check what works and what doesn't with specific tools. In fact, you must never remain still, or you run the risk not making all the hard work pay off.
You must be open to any changes, to improve the site gradually, until you get a product that works to the best of its potential.
Do you want to create a professional website that fully reflects your brand?
Contact Ekeria, an expert digital agency in the sector. We can create the perfect website with you to grow your business. Contact us for a free consultation on the best strategy for you.
