The Ultimate Website-Building Checklist For Your Brand
Maximize Festive Season Sales With Fynd Platform
Learn from the masters and cracks the code to festive season sales success with Fynd Platform's Festive Readiness Guide
.webp)
Now that your customers live online, it is important for your business to provide them a smooth, enjoyable online experience. With the pace with which technology has grown, everyone with a good internet connection and motivation can establish a successful online business and start serving customers irrespective of their geographical location. Here is a checklist you can trust to build a website that will help you grow your brand and that your audience will love!
1. Domain Name
A domain name is your brand’s online address, the URL that a potential customer will type into their browser to reach your website. If your website was a house, the domain name is its address.
A domain name generally looks like www.yourcompanyname.com. There are several domain endings, like .com, .net, .in, to choose from. Choose a domain name as close to your brand name as possible.
If you can’t find an exact match, try to add a hyphen in the name or choose a different ending, e.g. www.your-companyname.com or www.yourcompanyname.co.in. Now, where to buy one from? There are online services called Domain Name Registrars (DNRs) where you can buy a domain name for your website. There are many reputed, easy-to-use DNRs online to help you, including GoDaddy, Domain.com, Big Rock and Google’s own Google Domains.
2. Hosting
Well, now you’ve got an address for your website. But you’ll also need a storage vault, so to speak, to house all your site’s data. This is where buying good web hosting becomes important. Web hosting is like a rental storage space to store all your website data, including the code, images, product list and order history.
There are two ways to go about buying good hosting for your website. Most of the popular DNR services provide hosting as a bundled service with domain names these days.
This has the advantage of convenience and good pricing. Or, there are dedicated web hosting services which provide you the power get more bang for your bucks. You can opt for extra features like more email accounts, free daily data backup, unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth.
For a bundled package, go for one of the DNRs above without hesitation. If you'd like a more tailored plan, some of the best web-hosting services are Hostinger, HostGator, and Blue Hosting.
3. Branding
Your website is the main interface between your brand and your customers and should effectively communicate what your brand stands for. Before you begin building a website, make sure you have the key elements of your business’s branding in place.
This includes your brand name, logo, brand colours, a tag line (if there is one) and a short text for the ‘About Us’ section. Now, if you are not skilled at graphic design and don’t have a graphic designer at your disposal, we've got you covered.
The internet has plenty of easy-to-use free online graphic design tools for your needs. Use Colors or Adobe Color to generate a colour scheme for your brand. And if you’re in need of a logo, head over to Canva or Figma to help you with that!
4. Content
Your website’s content is how your customers will understand your brand and products. So, do spend a few hours planning out the content. Start with deciding which webpages you must have.
As a rule of thumb, you would do well to have these pages: Home, About Us, Blog and Terms of Us. The rest will be determined by your particular business. In general, you will need pages to list all your products or services, along with detailed pages for each of them.
Once you have this basic framework ready, begin writing content for these pages. You'll also have to collate images and graphics for the site. Well, with the variety of tools at your disposal, that shouldn't be an issue. Just consult item #4.
5. Choosing the right website builder
Here comes the most important milestone of the journey-getting down to building the actual website. With the many website building tools available online, you don’t have to hire a website developer to build one from scratch.
There are a ton of great website builders, like WordPress, Wix and Squarespace, which are easy to use and offer a ton of customizations. They provide a variety of plugins to enhance your website; options like custom user profiles, mobile apps, a blog, and more.
But if you are building an ecommerce website, it'd be better to choose a specialized service like Fynd Platform. A lot more than an ecommerce website builder, Fynd Platform can ship your orders for you and lets you create your mobile app, marketing campaigns, rewards programs and more.
6. Optimization For Search Engines
Once your website is ready to take off, it is important to make sure that it is easily discoverable online and ranks highly in search results. Make sure that the website loads quickly, and optimize it for loading on mobile phones.
Google Page speed Insights will help you track down any issues and rectify them. Next, pepper keywords related to your category across your website. Google Keyword Planner is the best place to see which keywords are being searched the most.
Don’t overkill it, or Uncle Google will be very angry. Add some keywords in your webpage titles, content and ‘alt' text for your website’s images. Also, see if your website builder has an SEO-related plugin or extension to automate this process for you. Now comes the most important part. Create a blog section on your website and make sure to publish regular blog posts. Which brings us to the next item in this list.
7. Blog
Your website should have a blog section, where you can publish regular content related to your industry and offer knowledge. An active blog section will help you build a strong relationship with your customers and rank higher in Google search results.
Most website-building services offer the capability to create a new webpage or blog section for your website. Fynd Platform offers a plug-and-play blog interface where you can create a blog section in a few clicks AND manage all your blog posts from one simple interface.
If you're confused about what to write, try to answer your customers’ biggest queries and write about new developments in your industry. For more content ideas, give Buzz Sumo and Uber Suggest a shot!
8. Social Media Integration
Your social media is how your customers can keep a track of keep in touch with your brand. So, it'll be a good idea to connect it with the website. Find a spot to display your social media links. Most websites have their social media URLs at the bottom, called the footer, of their homepage. So that could be a good place to go with.
9. Performance Tracking
Once your website is up-and-running, try to keep a tab on how it’s performing against certain Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). like number of visitors, email subscriptions, number of transactions, number of units sold, etc. While most website builders offer some in-built website data, it'd be wise to install a website analytics tool like Google Analytics.
10. Website backup
The simple practice of backing up your website regularly can save you in the long-term. It’ll save you from losing data and help you against malware. It will also allow you to revert to an older version of the website, if you ever need to.
Maximize Festive Season Sales With Fynd Platform
Learn from the masters and cracks the code to festive season sales success with Fynd Platform's Festive Readiness Guide
What are the key elements that should be included in a website for a brand? A brand's website should feature the following critical elements
1. A clear and appealing brand statement that conveys the brand's unique value proposition: This should be clearly featured on the website.
2. A polished and professional appearance: The website should have a polished and professional appearance that matches the brand's image and personality.
3. Simple navigation: The website should be simple to use and have a clear structure that allows people to quickly and easily discover the information they want.
4. Material that is optimised for search engines: The website should include high-quality, relevant, and engaging content that is optimised for search engines. Keywords, meta tags, and alt tags are all examples of this.
5. Design for all devices: The website should be optimised for all platforms, including desktop, tablet, and mobile.
6. Call to action: The website should feature obvious call-to-action buttons that urge users to take the next step, whether that is purchasing something, signing up for a subscription, or contacting the company.
7. Contact information should be obvious and easy to discover on the website, such as a phone number, email address, and physical location.
8. Social proof: Include customer evaluations, testimonials, and case studies to increase visitor trust and trustworthiness.
How can I ensure that my website is user-friendly and easy to navigate? Several major components go into making a website user-friendly and easy to navigate
1. Consistent navigation: The website's navigation structure should be clear and consistent, allowing users to readily access the information they require.
2. User-centric design: The website should be created with intuitive layouts and simple, easy-to-use interfaces in mind.
3. SEO: Include keywords and meta tags in your website's content to make it more search engine friendly.
4. Mobile-friendly: The website should be adaptable to multiple screen sizes and optimised for mobile devices.
5. Loading speed: To keep people interested and decrease bounce rates, the website should load swiftly.
6. Quality content: The website should offer high-quality, relevant, and entertaining information that is easy to read and understand.
7. Contact information should be obvious and easy to discover on the website, such as a phone number, email address, and physical location.
8. Clear CTA: The website should feature clear call-to-action buttons that urge consumers to take the next step, whether that is making a purchase, signing up for a subscription, or contacting the business.
What are some best practices for creating high-quality website content? Best practices involved in creating high-quality website content
1. Search engine optimisation: Use relevant keywords and meta tags to optimise the content for search engines and increase visibility.
2. Relevant and helpful: The material should be relevant and useful to the intended audience, containing valuable information.
3. Content must be distinctive and interesting, with a clear and compelling message that connects with the target audience.
4. The text should be well-written and well-researched, with good language and spelling.
5. Use of pictures and videos: Use photos, videos, and infographics to complement and enhance the material.
6. Scannable format: Make the material more scannable and easier to read by using headers, bullet points, and short paragraphs.
How can I make sure my website is optimised for search engines? Optimised your website for search engines by including
1. Keyword research: Conduct keyword research and employ relevant keywords across the website's content and meta tags.
2. Meta tags: Use meta tags, like meta titles and meta descriptions, to give search engines information about the content of your website.
3. Site structure: Create a sitemap and use a clear and organised website structure to assist search engines in comprehending the arrangement of the website.
4. Backlinks: Create quality backlinks from other websites to increase the visibility and trustworthiness of your website with search engines.
5. Mobile optimisation: Ensure that the website is optimised for mobile devices, as search engines prefer mobile-friendly websites.
6. URLs: Use URLs that are basic, clear, and appropriate to the content of each page.
How can I ensure that my website is mobile-friendly?
You can ensure that your website is mobile-friendly by:
1. A responsive design automatically adapts the website's layout to match the screen size of the device being used.
2. Mobile optimisation: Optimise the graphics and videos on the website to minimise loading times on mobile devices.
3. Touch-friendly: Ensure that the website's buttons and links are big and well-spaced so that they may be readily clicked on a mobile device.
4. Utilising a clear, consistent navigation structure that is simple to use on a mobile device.
5. Mobile-specific features include: To improve the user experience on mobile devices, leverage mobile-specific features such as click-to-call and location-based mapping.
6. Testing: Run the website through its paces on several mobile devices to confirm that it is completely functional and user-friendly on all platforms.
How can I use my website to build my brand and establish a strong online presence?
Establish a strong online presence by implementing these elements:
1. A clear brand message: The brand's distinctive value proposition and messaging should be prominently displayed on the website.
2. A polished and professional appearance: The website should have a polished and professional appearance that matches the brand's image and personality.
3. High-quality content: The website should have high-quality, relevant, and interesting material that is search engine optimised.
4. Integrate social media connections and utilise social media to promote the website and communicate with consumers.
5. Search engine optimization: Use relevant keywords and meta tags to optimise the website for search engines.
6. Customer testimonials and reviews: Include customer testimonials and reviews to develop trust and credibility with visitors.
