{"id":3828,"date":"2023-09-12T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T09:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ajxmedia.com\/?p=3828"},"modified":"2023-09-22T05:21:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T05:21:32","slug":"how-i-designed-my-business-website-in-10-simple-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ajxmedia.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/12\/how-i-designed-my-business-website-in-10-simple-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"How I designed my business website in 10 simple steps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was an exciting time. I decided to take my side hustle and turn it into my main hustle. I had years of experience under my belt, healthy relationships with several clients across different industries, and big aspirations for my new business.  I was all set for the big time, right? Well, not quite. One of the first steps in getting the business up and running was building a great business website. And as a webmaster who has done this many times before, I knew the importance of having an engaging website that helps clients find what they\u2019re seeking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armed with that understanding, I took a step back and asked myself what I needed to make this successful. There were already all these grand ideas in my head for what it should include, how it should look, and how to design the customer journey. I knew that wasn\u2019t enough and that I needed to take a more organized approach if I was to do this right. So, I put together a plan for developing my new business website and then began to execute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the steps I took to make it happen. I\u2019ll try to keep this pretty high-level without going into all the nitty-gritty technical details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission from purchases made through these links.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Desk<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1) Identify goals<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The very first thing I did was identify the goals that the website needed to accomplish. As a new web design business, I knew I needed to establish some credibility. While my clients, close friends, and family knew what I did (to a certain extent), how would I build trust with the people just learning about me? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, I needed to define the specific services that I would be able to provide. Coming from a marketing background, I had a pretty expansive skillset (if I do say so myself) but I didn\u2019t want to provide too many services and \u201cmuddy the waters\u201d, if you will. I really needed to zero in on what I wanted to do (and not do) to provide clarity to website visitors. Also, I wanted to start small before scaling up. So, it was important to frame that section of the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with clients in the past, I also often heard complaints about other web designers. Often, they would work with designers that were difficult to reach or too busy to talk to them. Of course, this left to dissatisfaction with clients and many times they ended up leaving. So, it was important that I made it really easy to reach me through the website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Notebook<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

2) Get domain and hosting<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Once I had some of the primary challenges and goals captured, I knew I needed to get my domain and hosting set up. Now, there\u2019s a lot that can be said about what companies to work with for each. I\u2019ve been with many companies over the years myself. So, I asked myself what my business would need, especially in the beginning stages. How much traffic am I expecting? How important is customer service? Do I have access to a hosting control panel?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After some consideration, I decided to use NameCheap <\/a>for my domain and switched to SiteGround<\/a> for my hosting. So far my experience with each has been very positive (and this is coming from someone that\u2019s used many companies).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\"Social<\/a>\n\n\n\n\"Ad<\/a>\n\n\n\n

3) Look for inspiration<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After that part was locked up, I started looking for inspiration. I visited other websites, both in my industry and in other industries, to get ideas for how the site should look. I also considered unique functionalities that would be useful to add. I looked at different interfaces and made notes of what worked, what didn\u2019t work, and what I liked overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would make sense for my website? What would help users when they visited? Is there anything I\u2019ve done before that could be applied here? I considered these things and many more before designing anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n