If you’re planning to build a website, you need to know that it’s almost the same as constructing a new house. A long-lasting creation needs a secure foundation, perfect finishing, durable materials and a catchy, visually appealing design. Similarly, to build your own website, there are several key factors that are vital for its development: Domain name, platform, keyword research, SEO and web design. Juggling between your viewer’s expectations and your own ideas can make it challenging to make your own website, but you’re going to learn all the tricks, tips, dos and don’ts to take your web design to the next level. Apart from these, there are also many online website builders and platforms to help you create a website of your dreams.

This is a very important factor. You cannot start creating a website without strategizing your brand. Devise a branding strategy that is detailed and solid. Consider the tone of your website and its philosophy. What content will work best? Here are 4 important factors you should know when you build a website.

• Target Market: You need to identity your target market. Who is your intended audience? Which demographic do they belong to? What are their main interests? Do you think your website can influence them and how?
• Competitor: You need to get a handle on who you’re up against.How strong is your competition? Figure out their weaknesses and strengths. You need to find the perfect niche to make a strong impact in your respective field.
• Brand Identity: The task is to define your brand in a few words. Is there a vision behind your brand? Does that vision motivate your brand in any way? View your brand like a personality and think of all the ways you can make it look good. Take you for instance. You know the kind of personality you have and what will look good on you. Similarly, your brand also has a personality.The color, design, style and vocabulary you choose will make a huge difference.
• Branding Material: The focus is to come up with content that you’re going to feature on your website, as well as other pages. This material may include your logo, a featured video, perhaps a tagline, a caption, your motto, text and more. Remember, all these things need to cater to your brand’s needs and should serve as a lever for your brand identity.

The design is the face of your website. It should be appealing, captivating and fit your brand. Did you know, it takes a user less than a minute to decide if they want to stay on your page? If the website is not able to capture the audience, they will simply switch to another platform. So you need to ensure your website has what it takes to make the viewers want to stay longer. For that, you first need to choose a template, customize it according to your needs (also keeping in mind what your audience might like), and then make final tweaks to your design to make it perfect.

• Template Selection: A template is the foundation of your website. Different templates are designed in accordance to different field, industry or business types. The template you choose should fit your needs and the style will complement your field. There are plenty of websites where you can find templates that cater to your needs. Don’t rush. Look at each template thoroughly and remember who your audience is and how it complements your brand.
• Template Customization: The best thing about a template is that you can always customize it. You don’t have to keep the template as it is. You can edit it by adding content, links, audio text, images, and videos. The design can be refined according to your taste. You can change the color, font, shapes, number of pages and so much more.

If you talk to most web designers, you will hear them say, ‘Keep it simple!’ Yes, that’s the key to a successful website. The more you complicate the design, the harder it gets for viewers to understand what the website is about thus making them leave and choose another option. A website with a lot of pages is not easy to search and explore. The fewer the pages, the easier it is for viewers to explore the website. Trim down the number of pages and only keep the ones that are necessary.

• One Page Websites: In the past year, websites with only one page are becoming quite popular. The single page on these sites is quite long and has all the relevant and necessary material and information. You don’t have to open lots of pages just to find out more about the brand, instead you simply scroll down.

Many websites have two separate pages with the same information. It is not wise to have an ‘About Me’ and an ‘About The Site’ page.One will do just fine, but don’t mix the content.Keep it separate, but on the same page. Divide it into headings and sub headings to identify it more clearly. The key pages that your website should have include:

• Homepage
• About Us
• Products/Services
• Contact Us
• Blog (If it’s necessary and important)

You have a stunning design. Everyone loves it. However, is your website as user friendly as it is incredible? A friendly user-interface enhances the experience of the viewer and takes it to a whole new level. If you want to get far, make sure your website functions properly. Otherwise, there’s no point in having a beautiful website. You need to pay attention to several important factors for your website to operate perfectly.

You need to make sure your website is easy to navigate. You need to ensure there are no hidden pages or categories users can’t find. Users should easily be able to navigate without any hassle.

You should avoid adding content that’s not readable. What’s the point of making a website when your viewers are not even able to read the content? The font you use should not be so fancy that users are not even able to get what’s written. Also, it should be the appropriate size and the color should be noticeable. The color should not blend with the background, rather it should stand out so others can read it easily. You also need to make sure there is enough space between the text.

The footer of the website is the last thing a viewer sees. It may not seem that important but in fact it can be very helpful. It can be used in several ways and can enhance usability. You can add all of your contact information, links to your social media profiles, tabs, buttons, sitemap, and much more. The choice is unlimited, and you can do a lot with the footer space that makes the user feel comfortable.

If you want to increase traffic on your website, you need to apply one of the most important strategies of all, SEO. Search engine optimization brings your website into the limelight. Your website becomes more prominent.

The most important part of SEO is finding the right keywords to work with. Before you select any keyword, think of what your client or customers will search for on Google. Put yourself in their shoes. Think about how they will Google a product when they want to search for it. Once you have a clear idea, you can easily make a list of all the potential keywords that would work perfectly for your website.

Meta tags are yet another important factor. Visitors don’t usually know about this but search engines do. Search engines read your Meta tags and decide what rank you should be.

Having lots of other websites that link directly to your website helps as well. We’re not saying that you create several other websites just to promote your main website. Perhaps an article a user is reading might link to your website. The reader might click and land on your page through that content.

For a website to be a hit, stick to the following:

• Always choose a good domain name.
• Plan your website before creating it.
• Always think about your users first and their needs.
• Take all the time you need when you’re planning how to make your own website.
• Add in different styles to make it look attractive.
• Make sure your website is user friendly.

The following are things you should avoid:

• Writing a bad code (this will compromise your website.)
• Using images that are way too large. This is not ideal.
• Completing a website but never working on it again. Don’t do it!
• Adding any illegal content. Avoid it as it might put your website at risk.
• Making your design overcomplicated. This will confuse your users.

It’s the age of technology and now, there are plenty of ways you can create a website. A website builder that can help you create a website is the easiest way. You don’t have to be a designer or an expert to use a website maker.

These software tools are the perfect answer to your ‘how to build a website’ questions. Now you can easily build a professional-looking website using an ecommerce website builder. It creates websites that cater to your needs and specifications. Also, it will consider the most crucial factor, your viewers.