Introduction
Do you want to create a website to increase the visibility of your business and attract new customers, but you don't know where to start? You are at the right place !
In this article I will provide you with the keys to successfully create your website.
1. Assess your needs and goals
Before embarking on the creation or redesign of a website, it is necessary to answer a certain number of questions. This is to get a clear idea of the goals you are trying to achieve with your website:
- What do you expect from your website?
- What is the target of your website?
- What type of content do you want to upload?
- What essential features do you need?
*For example *, an artisan jeweler wishing to sell his creations online will naturally turn to the creation of an e-commerce site. Conversely, a lawyer wishing to communicate with professionals around his activity and acquire new clients will see his need satisfied by a showcase site in the image of his firm.
2. Define a digital strategy
After having determined the type of website corresponding to your needs as well as the functionalities which are specific to it, it is important to define a digital strategy.
A digital strategy encompasses a set of webmarketing actions aimed in particular at improving your referencing (SEO) by having, for example, content adapted to the keywords on which you wish to appear in search engines such as Google.
It is also during this step that it will be necessary to define the marketing tools that you would like to put in place around your website such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager or Google AdWords.
3. Write specifications
It is the essential support for the success of your project. It is on this document that you will meticulously express all of your needs and the objectives that you wish to achieve.
Once the specifications have been written, you will be able to consult digital service providers and obtain in return an estimate of your website or web application project.
4. Cost of your project
Now that you have a specification you can submit it to different web agencies in order to obtain an estimate of your website project. The advantage of providing one and the same specifications to each service provider is that each estimate will be produced on a common basis.
It is thus much easier for you to compare the different proposals with each other and to choose your web agency.
5. Create wireframes
A wireframe is a functional model of your site that ignores the graphic and aesthetic aspects of it. The objective at this stage of the project is to focus on the essentials, namely: the tree structure of the site, the structure of the pages and the design of the different user paths.
This step will allow you to validate with the web agency that you have chosen the functional aspect of your website.
6. Write content
If you want your website to have effective SEO and be visible on Google, you will have to write original and quality content for each page of your site. Search engines (as well as your visitors) particularly appreciate websites that regularly publish new content.
7. Conceive the design
Now that you have validated with your web agency the structure and operation of your website using wireframes and that your content has been written, it is high time to move on to the visual and aesthetic aspect of your project.
During this step, the web designer will define with you the visual identity of your website and apply it to your wireframes. Each of the design pages is created with the utmost attention to the user experience.
8. Creating your website
This is the moment when the creation of your website begins on the technical level. Depending on your needs and your budget, the developers will use a CMS (such as WordPress or Drupal) or carry out a completely custom development.
The team of the service provider you have chosen will implement the functionalities listed in your specifications one by one and give life to your pages by inserting your various contents (texts, images, videos, etc.).
9. Test the site before it goes live
This phase is crucial to the success of your website creation project. It allows you to ensure the proper functioning of each functionality of the website as initially planned in the specifications and the wireframes.
10. Putting the site online
Here we are ! After more design and development time, your website is now complete.
Your IT department will put your site online on a hosting server and it will be accessible via the domain name you have chosen.
To speed up SEO, your service provider will very often generate a sitemap file and submit it to various search engines such as Google.
11. Follow-up and maintenance
Your site is now online and can begin to receive its first visitors. But your project itself is not finished. Indeed, a website lives and must evolve to remain relevant over time.
This is why we recommend that you opt for a maintenance contract with your service provider. This contract may contain different services depending on your recurrent needs:
Updates to your CMS (WordPress or Drupal). Improved referencing (SEO). Content writing. Backing up your database.
The role of your service provider is also to assist you in the creation of new pages, the development of new functionalities or the implementation of a new natural referencing strategy (SEO).
These are the different stages of designing and developing a website. Thank you for the time you sacrificed, I hope you enjoyed the article 🙏
This article was written in collaboration with Jean Palier . Thank you John!!!
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