10 Things To Keep In Mind While Launching A New Website

Maintaining a website is really very tough. Launching a new website is the next difficult thing. Once you set up a wrong website you are gone and it takes months to recover. Sometimes the effects are irreversible and you have to start it all very once again.  So, here are 10 points that you should keep in mind while you are planning to launch a new website.

1) Platform where you would want your website to be:

Choosing a correct platform for setting up your website or blog is the first step that you should think. You have to consider a number of points before taking a decision:

1. a) Are you on a small budget? If yes you can go for many of the free platforms to create your blog or website. Google’s blogger platform is the best and most advanced. However you can try out tumblr (if you are a photo or image based user) or WordPress.com (if you are okay with the limitations, but it is the second best platform after blogger).
2. b) If you want a sophisticated and fully functional site that would give you full control for your site then it would be better to use WordPress.org. This very blog is set up on WordPress .org.  For this you have to buy hosting to host your blog on. I will discuss hosting later in the post.

2) Domain name:

After you have gone through the selection of platform you can get a domain name for as low as $5. If you want a complete free blog then you can get it by blogger and wordpresss.com having a subdomain www.your domain.blogspot.com or www.yourdomain.wordpress .com. However this would not go well if you want your website for professional reasons.

Things to consider when buying a domain:

1. a) Register a domain name that is easy to remember and does not include to many hyphens or numbers.
2. b) Try booking a domain name with .com or .net extensions. If you want country specific traffic then having an .US or .IN etc. domain makes sense.
3. c) Do not register domains with extensions .So, .Nz or such as these domains hardly help you in SEO and are regarded as spam.

3) Hosting: 

Hosting means the webspace which will have your site hosted on it. There are many hosting providers like Hostgator, bluehost, Wpengine etc. Choose the one that best suits your needs based on traffic you expect, the storage you need etc. There is a hosting one.com that provides efficient and reliable hosting with only the cost of the domain for the first year. So you have to choose what you want.

4) Time: 

Now that these basic things are set up there is something that you should consider seriously; time.

There is no use posting 7-8 posts on one day and not posting the next one for the next six months. You should consider that blogging or setting up a website is a serious task in which your audience is expecting to hear something from you. If you don’t provide them with desired results they will fly away.

If you don’t have time for writing you should arrange a content writer much before you set up your blog so that when your blog so ready it should have something for everybody.

5) Your audience:

You should consider who your future audience will be before launching your website. Are they teenagers, or are they from the corporate world, or are they from the photographer’s community.

It is then that you can do a research on what your blog should look like and what should be your key target points. Selecting and knowing your audience will help you know what way they can be leveraged. How you can monetize them etc.

6) Your ultimate goal also matters:

What is your ultimate goal of setting up a website? Do you want to sell a product? Or do you want to inform the audience about the topics related to your niche. Or do you want to showcase your work portfolio? These questions are very essential and important to consider prior to the launch of your website. Once you know your goals you can work towards it. It is far better than just randomly opening your website and realizing halfway that you have missed your goal. Returning can be painful both resources wise and labor wise.

7) Design of your Website:

Design is the most important part of your website. Setting up the best theme is an intelligent step that you should consider before even launching your site. Because most well designed and highly converting themes require you to invest money you should make prior arrangements.

Here are certain aspects for your design worth keeping in mind.

1. a) A classy theme: It is a must if you want to set up your blog for a business purpose. A funky theme for teenagers will be perfect to hook them up for hours.
2. b) Read points six once again: Yes your aim for website also affects your design. If you want your product to be sold at your website you could use many of the ecommerce themes that have exclusive features to sell online. Woocommerce is one.
3. c) If you want your website as a freelance portfolio for your work there are thousands of themes that give a class to your portfolio. Check them out.

8) Proper knowledge on SEO: If you are planning to be blogging for a long time. It is no brainer to leran on the go. Instead you should learn the basic SEO, blog set ups and other simple tutorials beforehand. This will not only help you to build a confidence. But also will save a few bucks from your pocket that would be spent in the name of designers and SEO experts. Read out authority blogs and YouTube videos are the largest and most reliable source to learn the basics.

9) Social skills:

I have already said this many times but am still not tired of saying it. You should enhance your social skills to build up a network for your website. If you are setting up a basic website only to update your business happenings then this step can be ignored. Else proper connections will help you reach your goal easily.

10) Last but not the least; Monetization

 

Before even setting up a website you should always give a thought on monetizing it. I am not saying to overload it with ads the very first day of launch itself, but building up a strategy in which you decide how to monetize your site in the future is essential. Imagine you realize you have to stop your website months after its launch just because you had no sufficient funding’s? So, it is advisable to make a proper strategy.

Over to you;

So these were the most important basic things to keep in mind before setting up a website. Hope this helps you to build a better website with concise planning.