Let's say you're ready to establish your online presence and you need to develop your own website. If you're not a designer and are relatively new to the website creation world, chances are you're going to hire someone to do it.
Regardless of whether you hire a freelancer or a professional digital agency, it's worth following a checklist or listing of essential elements to ensure your site doesn't end up lacking some crucial information that your customers might be looking for. At the end of the day, you'll have to provide the designers with the final 'OK' so it's good to have a reference point to lean on. This is where the below infographic from 99MediaLab can help.
A basic website has a Home, About Us, Contact Us and Privacy Policy pages. Most websites also have an FAQ page and maybe a blog.
Some important questions to ask when creating a new website:
- Will this website work on mobile devices?
- What will be the components of the website menu structure? (Hint - no clutter)
- What about the footer and the sidebar?
- What about some images to catch the eye and the reader's attention?
- Where do the social media buttons and search feature go?
- What about a content management system to better manage content? (Which one?)
- Will the website load fast? How fast is fast enough?
- Have you selected a secure and reliable host for the website?
- Does the host take automatic backups? How often?
As a small business owner, you already have plenty of things to worry about, like financing, costs, income, clients, accounting, systems, advertising and so on. The last thing you need is a non-functional or incomplete website.
Hopefully, this infographic will highlight all the important areas you need to check off on in the creation process.
Infographic source: 99MediaLab