Marketing tips

7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Building a Website

Want to build a new website?

Exciting right!? Whether you're planning to hire a web designer or interested in starting a do-it-yourself (DIY) website project, having a smart approach and knowing where to start can save you time and money. We want to help you with this important and exciting process, and have written a few important things to keep in mind to help make your first steps easy and stress-free. Many people can get overwhelmed by the many different options, new terms, and sometimes complicated features they hear about when speaking with web designers. But if you ask yourself a few simple questions you can easily prepare yourself with a strong foundation of the right information to help make your next steps and discussions with any web designers much more productive and efficient.

In this post we've created a list of helpful questions to ask yourself that will help tremendously if you take a little time to answer them before contacting web designers about creating a new website or even if you want to build it yourself:

 

1. How will your company benefit from a new website or redesign?

  • Do you want to increase revenue and online sales?
  • Do you want to bring more traffic to your site?
  • Do you want to integrate any new features into your website?
  • Do you just want your website to be modern and mobile-friendly?

 

2. Who are your primary audience and target visitors?

  • Do you have a younger or older audience?
  • Will most of your visitors already know your brand when they arrive, or visit after only seeing an advertisement without knowing much about your brand?
  • Are your visitors interested in learning something or taking a specific action?
  • What action do you want first time visitors to take?
  • What kinds of actions do you want returning visitors or existing customers to take?
  • Do you prefer visitors to call you, book something, buy something, sign up for something, or just submit their email address?

 

3. What content do you need, and what content do you already have?

  • How much information needs to be on your website?
  • Do you know what pages you want to have, the names of the pages, and text they will contain?
  • Do you have photos already, or do you mind using stock photos on your website?
  • Do you have any graphical elements to add, and have they already been designed?
  • Do you already have a logo designed?
  • Do you need any custom graphics or icons to communicate your message?

 

4. Do you have your domain, hosting, or company email already?

  • Have you thought of or purchased a domain for your website yet?
  • Have you decided what hosting company to go with and what type of hosting you'll need?
  • Do you have a company email setup with your domain name in it?

 

5. Have you researched what your competition is doing?

  • What kind of website are they using?
  • How does their content compare to what you want on your site?
  • What 'calls to action' (CTA) do they use?
  • What products or services do they emphasize most?
  • What is the structure and sitemap of their website?
  • What special features or functionality does their website use?

 

6. How will you market your website & drive visitors to it?

  • Will you continually update your content to provide new valuable content for visitors?
  • Will you use social media activity and networks to drive people to your site?
  • Will you use online, print, radio, or TV advertising to drive traffic?
  • Do you want to pay for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to rank well in Google?
  • Do you need traffic right away or are you happy to have traffic grow slowly as you add more content to your website or social media streams?

 

7. How Do You Measure Success and Optimize For It?

  • Are you considering site traffic monitoring systems?
  • Do you want to track ROI for conversions per advertisement?
  • Will you try to track total sales, or be able to identify sales from different channels?
  • Will you use outside sales and marketing subcontractors, or your own in-house team?

For measuring advertising performance and optimizing to improve it, you may want to consider strategies such as A/B testing, SEO, Content Generation, Ad Conversion Tracking, asking leads how they heard about you, using and comparing multiple channels to drive traffic from social media and online content distribution networks, in addition to traditional print, radio, & TV placement.

Don't be afraid to ask for help.

Be sure to keep these tips in mind when you're considering building your next website. You will be much more prepared if you take a few minutes to consider each question, learn what the terms mean if any are new to you, and don't be afraid to ask more questions. If you have get stuck on any of these questions, or feel want to have someone double check your answers, feel free to reach out to a professional at anytime!

All in Web Pro is here to help when you need us. Feel free to leave a comment below, or give us a call at our Las Vegas office at 702.331.0650!


WRECKING BALL MARKETING

Pop culture is great way to look at various marketing tools and trends that you can analyze and apply to your own personal brand and product.

It's about becoming relevant and popular in what seems to be a short matter of time. What most people in the general public don't realize that these pop phenomenas take strategic months/years of planning along with a good PR team to develop. I'll take this time to go over the "love it or hate it" Miley #teamtwerk craze and show you how a good marketing plan can help your business get more attention and success. The best part is, you don't even have to be dancing around in an oversized teddy bear costume with a foam finger!!!

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Now you might think because Miley was pretty well known before this complete 180 degree turn-a-round in persona, that her marketing route won't work for you but that's where you're wrong! It's about doing your research, creating a strategic buzz or hype around your company, a full fledged launch, and gaining even more attention by saving some surprises for later on.  Miley, before the release of her first single off of her latest album was releasing what seemed to be random but fun viral videos of her dancing or twerking in funny costumes. She planned on releasing a more urban geared album and needed to gain the attention of that audience who normally wouldn't be drawn to her, that's where the viral videos came into play! This is part of your initial research before launching your company. Learning who your audience is and what their habits are. Reaching out and interacting with them in their own social environments is a must! This means checking out or taking part in events, conferences, conventions, online blogs/websites, and expos where you can meet and network with potential clients or buyers of your product. Take your time in this phase. The more people "discover" you the greater the chance they may take an interest in your company and potentially start telling other people about what you're doing. It's obvious that the more people know about you the more potential business you may have only if you're targeting the right people. This must be done at the same time you're finishing or polishing up your main business whether it be a website, store, or album.

Once you notice people are getting excited about who you are and what your product is, it's time for a soft launch! Your first single can be phase 1 of your website where you have everything working just right but know that there may be a need for improvements depending on the feedback and  traffic you are receiving. Here is where you do even more promoting of your business, but more quickly. Create your own events or become sponsors of popular events where a good amount of your audience will be plus other new demographic audiences. You will start to see people outside of your target audience getting interested in your product. Stay open to feedback and plan for adjustments to keep everything running smoothly.

You have their attention so now it's time to come at them LIKE A WRECKING BALL!!! This will be more of a grand opening or full launch of your company. Come at them with a complete error free website and full service catalogue or clear and concise call to action. By this time you'll feel more confident in your product because of the success you were seeing in the previous phases. You have their attention and it's your time to deliver on the excitement you've created!!! It's more than having a good end product and just putting it out to the public. You know the old saying of "if you build it they will come", well "they" may not find you because they may not know you exist! You first have to take the time to do your research, create an awareness of your brand, launch your company, then promote, and fine tune it as you go. Once you're at the top, it's up to you to hold on to that status by investing in on-going marketing for company. It was long journey getting up there, why would you even want to start to slack off now?

 

CLICK HERE to enjoy this WRECKING BALL OFFICE DOLL we created for you to have as daily reminder of what it takes to twerk your way to the top!