If you’ve made it into 2019 without discarding at least one website, good on you. Over the past few decades, people have been building websites, letting them go, trying to start them up again, and finally moving onto something else. It’s been a time of great change, and much of that change has occurred online.
Chances are, you have changed too, and you are now ready to set up the latest website in your quest to take your business or blog forward. The website you set up now, will hopefully last you for a good few years, and will eventually evolve rather than lapsing into obscurity.
This site, techAU.com.au (formerly techAU.tv) will this year celebrate its 13th birthday. During that time, the site has grown and evolved substantially. Through many iterations the scope expanded to cover more as technology’s tentacles stretched into every industry. The site has been completely redesigned on multiple occasions, while optimisation ensures the ongoing objectives of the site are being met.
In order to do it right, you’ve got a few decisions to make. Here are 3 of the most important things you’ll need to consider.
1. Web Hosting
There have been some truly awful web hosting options that have come and gone. Some of them have stuck around, piling up the bad reviews and somehow still managing to survive. But many of those that have lasted have done so for good reason. They provide a good, reliable service and take their customers seriously.
Price is a major consideration for many people, and good web hosting doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. There are many great deals available if you know where to look, including GoDaddy hosting coupons, and coupons for other excellent hosting providers. These coupons are available with no strings attached and can save you quite a lot of money, in both the short and long-term.
Keep in mind as your website grows, you may need to move web hosts, something I’ve done at least 3 times, it’s painful, but the speed and reliability we have today is a result of this trial and error.
You’ll also want to look for a host that offers simply CMS setup, like WordPress, this will have you up and running in minutes, letting you focus on creating content, rather than becoming a web developer.
2. The Right Domain Name
Most of us don’t type in URLs anymore. We either click on a link on another website, a Google search, or let our browser fill it in for us. Even if we do occasionally type in a URL, we barely pay attention to it.
For this reason, people have started making the mistake of thinking their domain names don’t matter. It can be long and difficult to remember, but no one is going to have to remember it, right?
Unfortunately, that’s simply not the case. Domain names still matter. They matter to searches, and they matter to people. One of the most poignant moments is when they’re looking at your email address. If you don’t carefully think about how your domain name will look with your name in front of it, you may be in for some embarrassing moments.
3. SEO Expertise
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is still one of the most important skills to making sure your website is found by visitors. And as much as the major foundations of SEO have remained the same, a lot has changed. Google regularly updates the search algorithm, and you’re probably not keeping track of the search engine blogs.
If SEO isn’t your thing, or something you want to invest time in learning, you can hire an expert to help. Someone who lives and breathes SEO, rather than someone who knows the basics from a quick online course they did.
It’s a worthwhile investment to make, as it can be the difference between tens of visitors and hundreds of thousands. If you’re website features a online marketplace, SEO combined with great analytics, can help achieve an end-to-end data flow, enabling you accurately set a budget for digital ad buys, when you know the cost of customer acquisition and cart completions.