We’re all engaged in the virtual world, even if we want it or not and a part of our lives is spent on internet surfing, chatting with friends and on social networks. Surfing the internet and browsing websites is the most common thing we do while we’re online. But have you ever wondered what does it take to actually be a part of this huge World Wide Web? Let’s find out!
And I mean building and running a website. A website is basically a group of interlinked pages that may contain text, images, videos, etc, built on a technology. This technology can vary from the very popular HTML to something more powerful like content management systems built on PHP. But running a website is something more than dropping HTML/CSS code into a bunch of files and making them work. The purpose of this article is to help people who want to have a website and also new website owners, by pointing out the important aspects involved in the hard process of successfully building and maintaining a website.
Build a Website
Right off the bat, you need to know that a website involves some costs. Every website needs a web host which is going to store your files on the web. There are many providers out there, so it’s important to make sure you’re checking out a few real opinions before going all in with any. We’ve recently put together a comparison between two business-friendly web hosting providers which you can check it out at Inmotion vs Siteground. Next, once the website is live, you have to make sure it stays live – I strongly believe that every website needs a maintenance plan, to make sure it’s up and running smoothly and 24/7. Why? Because time costs money, that’s why!
Now, back to the building phase. The first thing you need to do before making your online presence is to create the web pages which are nothing than the structure of the website you’re aiming to. If you’re not a web designer you can hire someone to do it for you or you can pick a web template, which is a pre-made website, which means that all you need to do is to replace the dummy content from the template with your own content. The other option is to choose an easy website builder like Bandzoogle and save a lot of time & money.
No matter what option you choose, make sure you get a custom web design, because to be successful means to be different and an out-of-the-box website is definitely a good start. Once you have a website, you need to put it on the web. Now’s the time when you need a web host. Basically, a web host makes your website accessible via the WWW by uploading it on their servers. If these things are too much for you, there are services available, like web design pay monthly services which means that you pay to someone a fee to handle all the work for you, while you focus on your business.
Make an Online Presence
If you’re thinking that the hard part just passed, think again. Creating the website was the easiest part of the long process of running a website. Now it’s time to actually get known by driving traffic to your web pages. No matter what you do, the phrase which needs to stick in your brain is “Content is King”. Content is what makes you visible on the internet and that’s why many websites have a blog on which they post fresh content just to keep the site alive. The process is simple. Search engine robots are visiting your pages, index them and display them on search queries.
Let’s take an example: You write a blog post. Because the content is interesting, people share it on social networks and it becomes popular. Google robots follow the link from Twitter, Facebook and other websites which shared the post and comes on your website. Depending on how popular the post is, they index it and give it a rank, based on a very complex algorithm. If the page gets a high rank, it will be shown in search queries above other websites. This is how search engines work. So, the first step in making an online presence for your website is to make sure the content you present on it is unique and interesting.
Get Involved
I mentioned above about social networks. You can’t ignore them, nowadays when people slowly but certainly are moving to a more digitized lifestyle. Make sure you create accounts on popular websites like Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest. Get involved in discussions, start new ones and people will also start to visit your website. You have to enjoy and understand the advantages of social media for your website and business, but don’t forget that these are not places to sell your services, but to socialize and make connections. Social media becomes profitable only when people from social networks visit your site and become your readers/clients. So, it is important to have in mind a strategy of driving traffic to your website.
Wrapping up, running a website with success is not an easy task and often means to invest time and dedicate yourself to the process. In most cases, the benefits don’t come overnight and visitors won’t be thousands in number at the beginning, but eventually, hard work made with passion will be finally paid off.
