6 Questions You Should Ask Before Creating a Website
The first contact with a business nowadays takes place online in most cases. That means: if you have a business, you need a website. Regardless of which industry you operate in and regardless of the size of your company. Before you begin creating a website yourself or commission a professional web design agency, you should definitely answer the following 6 questions.
Who should the website address? How much do I want to maintain myself? Is a DIY system sufficient or do I need a professional? How much budget do I have available? How do I find a sensible website structure? What sections should my website definitely include?
1. Who Should the Website Address?
Who is my target audience? Or even better: who is my persona? Think carefully before you start about who your website should appeal to. This is the only way to ensure that your website can be successful. The only exception: your website is merely intended as a business card. If your web presence consists of nothing more than a homepage and a contact page, you can skip the persona process -- at least with regard to the website.
For all other marketing activities, you will still need the persona.
2. How Much Do I Want to Maintain Myself?
Do I want to do everything myself? Do I really need to do everything myself? Do I actually want nothing to do with it? These questions have a major impact on the price.
A simple HTML website is of course significantly cheaper than an elaborate CMS page*, where you can change nearly all texts and images yourself without the help of a programmer. A good approach is to ask yourself how often the website content needs to be changed. How often are new images added to the website?
Do you want to run a blog? Do events need to be regularly announced and updated on the site? As a general rule: if you have no way to change website content yourself, you should immediately arrange a flat-rate maintenance contract with your web designer. This is the only way to ensure that the website can continue to evolve.
Another question you should definitely clarify: what about regular backups of the website?
3. Is a DIY System Sufficient or Do I Need a Professional?
The options for quickly and easily creating a website yourself are becoming ever more numerous. From a web designer's perspective, one must also admit that they are getting better and better.
Of course, they cannot fulfil all your wishes, but for a quick test, they can certainly be sufficient.
What Does That Mean?
A DIY system is a good way to quickly and inexpensively test whether something works that you want to try out on the internet, e.g. whether a related product resonates with customers.
What Speaks in Favour of a Website Builder:
a) The price -- in most cases, such websites are very affordable and hosting is already included in the price b) You can change content quickly c) You can start working immediately
The Disadvantages of DIY Websites:
a) You have to do everything yourself. From image editing to adjusting texts to the graphic design of the website. b) You have no control over your data.
Of course, you can determine what appears on your site, but unfortunately you cannot simply save the website to your computer. And what if you want to switch providers at some point? c) Performance can suffer from other websites. "What, other websites affect how quickly my website loads?
" you may be wondering. The answer is: unfortunately, yes. DIY systems are always offered with so-called "shared hosting". This means that not only your site runs on the web server, but also many others -- and this can actually be hundreds of websites. If one of these external sites has an error or has been hacked, it affects the performance of all other websites on that server.
Including yours. d) Your website may never be finished. In my experience, this is one of the biggest disadvantages of DIY websites, especially for SMEs. DIY kits invite a quick start. Unfortunately, they do not invite you to plan the website in advance. The result: after getting started, you quickly get lost in small design tasks (heading colours, image positioning, ...), but the "big picture" is lost from view.
The Consequence Is Half-finished Websites That Never Go Live.
4. How Much Budget Do I Have Available for Website Creation?
Quite simply. If you have less than EUR 1,000 available, then use a DIY builder. Because a web designer who can work for that amount will hardly produce a better website.
For a website where you can change content such as images and texts yourself, which is already optimised for mobile devices (such as phones), you should expect at least EUR 2,000 to 3,000 from a small to medium-sized agency. For a site with an integrated online shop with diverse payment options, the price is higher.
At large agencies, you will hardly get a corresponding website for under EUR 5,000. However, you have the guarantee of having been advised by a professional and additionally have "redundancy" during the site creation. What does this mean for you? In small agencies, it can happen that there is only one web designer.
If they fall ill or are unavailable for other reasons, your project is stalled. This is not the case with larger agencies that have several web design specialists. There, you enjoy redundancy and can expect that the agreed completion dates will actually be met.
5. How Do I Find a Sensible Website Structure?
A website without a sensible structure cannot work -- from a technical perspective it can, of course, but for customer acquisition, not really. As a basis for your website structure, you should rely on two things: a) The results from creating your persona profiles and the customer journey.
If you have worked through the persona process and also know the customer journey of the persona, this is the optimal prerequisite for a sensible page structure. This way, you can identify what questions your persona has and at what point in the web presence these need to be answered. b) The experience of your web designer.
An experienced web designer can help you avoid many structural (and therefore navigational) errors. However, it is important that the web designer also has a "marketing background".
6. What Sections Should My Website Definitely Include?
The answer to this question will also be clear to you at the end of the persona process.
Put yourself in the position of your "dream customers". What do I need to know? What is required so that I can take an action (conversion) and call the company or fill in the contact form? What do I need to know about the product/service so that I am sufficiently informed and no longer search for a competitor?
Furthermore, you should by no means forget a contact form (with as few fields as possible) as well as a contact option on every single page of the web presence. For legal reasons, a legal notice (imprint), a cookie notice and -- if you process data -- a privacy policy are also required. *CMS page: these are websites created with the help of a so-called content management system.
They are somewhat more complex to create but can usually be maintained by the website operator themselves.
