Your website is the face that you present to the world. You can’t just jump to create a website so that you have a web presence. Instead, you have to consider several points before you start the process. Taking the time to plan your website now can help you from having to do a complete revamp in the future. Even if you already have a website and need to improve it, you can still take steps now to help you save time and money in the future.
Know your competitors
Your online competitors are one of the primary concerns you have when you are building or rebuilding a website. Go through your competitors’ websites to learn what information they have up. Find out what you can do to make your website even more valuable than their websites. Your job, or the job of the company handling your content, is to make your website stand out above the rest.
Know your customers
Your customers, including potential customers, hold the key to your website’s success. You can’t just write up content that you think is important. Instead, you need to think of questions and problems that your customers now and in the future might have. Try to answer all of their questions. You can create a keyword tree to help you come up with the ideas for some basic webpages. As you come up with basic webpages, you can go more in depth with more webpages that build on the basic information you use in the higher-level webpages.
Decide your company’s persona
Your company’s mission statement is the starting point for the persona you present on the Internet. Your entire web presence has to be based on your mission statement. When you come up with a mission statement for a business, you likely aren’t thinking about what that statement says online. Instead, you are thinking of how it conveys your company’s purpose to people in a physical manner. Transforming this to something that converts to an online message can be difficult because you need to have values and a purpose that people online will want. This can mean adding more information to the mission statement so that it transforms into searchable terms.
Choose the security you need
Your company’s website can have an http:// or an https:// address. This is a huge factor for Google. Typically, if you will accept any online payments, you need to go with an https:// page for at least the payment page. This lets your customers know that their information is secure. Of course, this might not be an issue if you have a payment portal. It is still important to consider which of these options will make your visitors feel safer when they are on your website.
Determine how to collect customer data
You want to know who is visiting your website. One option that you have for this is to include an option for visitors to sign up for email updates. This gives you the information that you need to start a list of contacts of people who are interested in your goods or services. If you do this, make sure that the information is secure and that you don’t spam people who sign up.
Plan the pages and links
The pages on your website should be carefully considered. You should have higher level pages that contain basic information. You also need pages that include more in-depth information about your goods or services. Setting up a funnel of sorts for your webpages can help you to plan these pages. Be sure that each page has a unique link and unique information so that Google doesn’t ding you for having duplicate information on your website.
Include social media information
Most companies with an online presence these days don’t have only a website. You need to integrate your social media profiles to help visitors feel more connected. This means that you need to plan for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, SnapChat, and other social website profiles and updates as a regular part of your online presence. This can help your Google rankings because you will have more interaction once you have all of the social media profiles integrated into your website.
Your plan for your website must be carefully scrutinized so that visitors stay will engaged. You can always start with a basic website and build from there by adding more information. Planning for this expansion now can help you save time and money later.
Source: https://moz.com/blog/strategic-seo-decisions-before-website-design-build