WORDPRESS WEB DESIGN

Have you thought what your website address (aka domain name) will be?

Consider issues such as length (shorter is better), ease of spelling and pronunciation, and how memorable it’s likely to be.

Bear in mind that it won’t just be your website address, but will be used as an email address and on promotional materials such as business cards, flyers and even on vehicles.

If you want to use the name on social media, check that it’s not already being used. If it’s available, then grab your social media profiles as soon as the domain is registered.

You can either register it yourself or get someone else to do it for you.

Information about checking domain availability and registering a name can be found on my Domains page.

Do you know how important website hosting is?

In order for your website to be visible on the internet, it needs to be ‘hosted’ somewhere, so that when someone enters your domain name into a browser or clicks a link to your site, all the files and data associated with it are transferred to the user’s browser and they see your website.

That transfer needs to be fast.

Poor quality hosting can slow down your website, so it’s important to choose a good hosting package.

I use cloud-based hosting from Hostinger, which provides excellent reliability (an average of 99.9% uptime) and is far faster than the shared hosting which many small businesses use.

Learn more on my Hosting page.

What do you want your website to look like?

One way to get ideas is to find some sites you like and ask why you find them appealing.

Depending on the purpose of your own website, not everything you see will be relevant, but whether it’s layouts, colours, images, fonts or sticky menus, make a note of them.

Remember that design is not only about how your content is displayed. It’s also about making sure that your messages are legible and readable.

Although your website should be individual to you, there’s a reason that so many sites share similar layouts: for most of us, design is a question of finding a compromise between individuality, practicality and affordability.

Read more on my Design page and check out my prices.

How will your website be found?

A majority of people looking for something on Google never explore beyond the first page of search results.

It’s therefore important to get on to that first page – and the higher up you appear, the more chance there is of people clicking on your link and visiting your website.

You can improve the chances of your site being found through the process of search engine optimisation (SEO), which aims to get your web pages to appear on the first page of Google (ideally in the number one spot) without having to pay for advertising.

To learn more about what SEO is, how it works and steps you can take to improve SEO yourself, visit my pages on search engine optimisation.

Who will be responsible for managing your website after it’s launched?

Will you be adding new products, blog posts, and changes to prices or opening hours, as well as updating plugins, themes and new versions of WordPress?

Or will it be someone else’s job?

Looking after it yourself might seem like a good idea, but think about issues such as the time needed to write and add new content, to find images, or to check that updated plugins don’t cause problems on the site.

Don’t let aftercare be an afterthought: consider from the start who’ll be managing your site and find out what support your web designer offers.

For details of my comprehensive and flexible website management packages, see my Support page.