Website building 

Websites are the portfolio of companies. They are also commonly used as marketing materials when businesses try to attract attention. Website building is either done by starting from scratch or using “pre-made” website templates such as from Wix.com. Nevertheless, creating websites will be more difficult if there was no planning before creating them.

Still, regardless of the type of websites you plan to create, there are 4 key steps you should know before building website. Hop on, as we share the how to build a good website! 

1. Hearing from all stakeholders

In any business, it is crucial to hear from different perspectives. Stakeholders such as customers and employees, may have differing views on the same matter. Thus, it’s best to first consolidate their opinions. By having a balance of what the business is trying to achieve, together with insight of what customers want, it will be easier to plan what are key features that should go into the website. As such, the website building process would be smoother.

2. Specifying goals and objectives

Before building website, you must first set clear team goals and objectives. For instance, sales team would define their goals as increasing profit margin by 10%, and having fewer customer complaints. The goals and objectives should answer “Where would you want and NEED to be in 1 month, half year, 1 year?”

3. Gathering Information  

How should you execute this? There are several methods to do this. 

Firstly, face-to-face interviews. Having a prepared list of questions will pave the way for the type of website you will be creating. This could be done through casual conversations. Alternatively, if you have a global team, use platforms such as Skype! This will save time, and show your inclusivity of all members in the business. 

Secondly, you can also use forms to collect information. To create the forms, you can try Google Forms and Typeform. Prior to blasting out the form via email, you can refer to the following article for more information on how to create effective survey forms.

Creating websites require a lot of data, so make sure to gather data from wide variety of people. 

4. Organising Information

Following that, information collected needs to be organised. One of the easiest ways to do this will be to use Google Sheets. If you had previously used Google Forms, there is a tab where you can review the responses. Charts and record of responses will be shown, and responses can be downloaded!

This way, you can clearly see what the general preferences for the outlook are like.

Tips

In this day and age, building websites has been much easier and convenient. With more templates available, many people have utilised them. However, to make an outstanding website, one of the key essentials is a persona. This means that website has a unique character, personality and vibe. Yet, at the same time, it should reflect the company too.

Another tip is to start to use the Google Design Sprint. What’s that? Well, it is actually a 5 day design framework where you beign with prototyping and end with learning from the experience. The best part of it is the validation you can obtain before you begin building website. 

Lastly, you can also include a blog to spruce up your website. This is very true especially for fashion brands such as Zara, and other businesses such as StyleTheory. If you wish to know reasons behind why you should have blogs on business websites, check out our previous post. 

We hope that these few tips, and detailing the process flow of creating websites has been helpful. Do let us know if you applied any of these techniques when you make your own. We look forward to seeing wonderful websites! 

Stay tuned for more sharing of Digital Marketing insights on the SMMILE blog.

If you ever need help with digital marketing, we offer cost-effective digital marketing package here. 

Feel free to drop us an email at hello@smmile.com or call our hotline +65 8687 8143 on Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm.

Hope this helps and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a quick comment below.

I’ll be around to reply to comments and answer questions.

Esther

Smmile is a Digital Marketing Agency in Singapore with over 10 years of experience in the industry.