So I convinced you to start a website for your business, huh? Good. I’m glad. You won’t regret it. But, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, deciding to start a website is only the beginning. Building a website can be an overwhelming undertaking. Note, I said “can” here.

I hear often from friends with side hustles, businesses, and non-profit organizations that they started a website, got overwhelmed, and then gave up. Building a website is a big task. A big task that requires a lot of preparation and planning. Without the preparation and planning, each step involved in building the website will feel unnecessarily complex and impact all of the other steps.

The key is to plan and prepare. Let’s go through, step by step, what that looks like.

1. Research: I’m a nerd. I love reading. I love research. I love data. So I tend to start any project with research. Depending on your industry, business, or personality, you may do just a little or you may do a whole heck of a lot. The things you can research are:

   • Target Audience. When researching your target audience, you can look into who your target customer is and their shopping habits (i.e. do they buy online, or just research online; do they buy in bulk or one item; are they women or men; are they mobile browsers or desktop users). This research will inform how you set up your website - its look, functionality, and complexity. You can usually find this information via a simple Google search. Some entity is always compiling this information for various industries into nice, neat little infographics.

   • Competitors. It’s nice to know what your competitors are offering on their websites - the look, functionality, and complexity. You don’t need to (nor should you) copy their websites. But it’s always good to see what’s working and what’s not, what you like and what you don’t.

   • Trends. Industries have trends, and so does website design. It can be helpful to know what trends websites are following in your niche or industry (i.e. videos instead of photos, horizontal scrolling instead of vertical scrolling, etc.).

   • Keywords. This is for search engine optimization purposes. You want to know what keywords people are using when searching for businesses like yours. Then you’ll want to include those throughout your website.

2. Branding. This is the fun part. Or at least I think so. This focuses on what the website will look like and how the viewer/customer will know it’s you. If you have a social media presence or have been operating for a little while, you likely already have many of the typical branding components. They include:

   • A logo, and a few variations of it

   • A color palette, 3 or 4 colors with one neutral and one for text

   • Typography, 1-3 fonts you’ll consistently use

   • A Favicon (the little icon in the internet tab by your website’s name)

3. Name and Domain. I listed this separate from branding because it’s a little more involved. You need a name for your website and its corresponding domain. Ideally, your website and domain name will be the same as your business’s. But sometimes that’s not possible because the name is taken. For example, I’d love for my website’s domain to have been LaurenMarie.com. But LaurenMarie.com was taken. So I had to make my website’s domain "ItsLaurenMarie.com.” Now when you log in, you only see “itslaurenmarie.com” in the URL. You see “LaurenMarie” all over the website. So your website name and domain name can vary, but shouldn’t vary too much.

   Once you settle on a name, and that name is available, you’ll need to purchase it from a domain host. Services like GoDaddy or Network Solutions are domain hosts. You can register your name with them and, once purchased, it will be your domain name. Or, you can go with a service like Squarespace or WordPress, and register your domain with them as you build your website with them.

4. Content Management System or Website Builder. This is the platform you will actually use to build your website. It will hold all of your text, images, files, etc. You will have to do a little research to determine which you’d rather use - content management system or website builder. Content management systems are platforms like WordPress. They’re known for their wide selection of plugins and themes. Website builders are platforms like Squarespace or Wix. They’re known for being easy, cheap, and fast.

5. Structure. It helps to know what pages you want your website to have. The most common pages include Home, About, and Contact. From there you can add “Shop,” “Blog,” “Services,” etc. These can also change as your business and website evolve. But it helps to have a general structure in mind when you get started.

6. Content. It’s not necessary, but it helps greatly if you have your content prepared before building your website. Content refers to the text and images on your website pages, and for businesses, to whatever product or service you offer. Having this ready prior to building your website means you can format and structure all at one time, as opposed to having to come back later.

7. Legalities. Every website should have terms and conditions or terms of use, and probably a privacy policy. These are pretty standard policies so you can gather them anywhere, or, depending on the complexity of your website and your business, you can hire a lawyer to write one for you.

8. Extras. From plug-ins and pop-ups to newsletter opt-ins and social media integration, there’s no end to how interactive and involved your website can be. These are things that can be added as you go, but it never hurts to have them in mind at the beginning.

9. Technicalities. These are things like search engine optimization, keywords, responsive layouts, image sizes, and so much more that make your website easier to find and view. If you know it, great! If you don’t, don’t stress too much. Get the website up and running and you can always tweak these things later.

Websites can be as simple or as sophisticated as you want them to be. They can start small or simple and evolve into something bigger and more complex. That’s the beauty of having your own website, it can evolve and mature into whatever you need it to be. But regardless of the size, complexity, or age of the website, it will need most of the items on this list.

Take a few days or weeks to gather numbers 1-7. Make a note of it somewhere, on paper, or electronically, or with my nifty printable. Have these notes next to you when you are ready to start building your website. You’ll then have everything you need within arm’s reach, making each step of the process easy and logical.

I assure you, this is totally manageable for you. Do bit by bit, day by day, if that feels more doable. But if you insist it’s too much, I’m more than willing to help out. Just send me a message.

Did you follow these steps in building your website? I’d love to see the finished product! Leave a comment with your URL and I’ll check it out.