How to create an appealing website?

A website is often your audience’s first experience with your brand, products, or ideas. Therefore, making a solid first impression with your website is crucial. Your website should not only be aesthetically appealing but also structurally easy to navigate, allowing your visitors to discover the content they are looking for.

From choosing the right domain name based on your website purpose to providing the relevant content, every detail matters to capture and retain your target audience’s attention. In this blog, we will discuss strategies and tips to help you create a website that stands out and effectively communicates to your audience.

Here we go.

First decide the niche of your website

To strategically align your website content, start by identifying a niche for your website. Choosing the right niche requires reflecting on your interests and passion, while also assessing your expertise and talents in these areas. To determine if the niche is viable, market demand, market gap, competition, trends, profitability and scalability and future possibilities must be explored. Once you have completed your research for deciding niche, you would have gathered enough insights to narrow down your focus to micro-niches. Focusing on micro-niches can help you achieve faster traction.

Decide the objective of your website

The next logical step is to consider the purpose of your website. Whether it is sharing your information and skills through a personal blog or promoting your business, there can be multiple purposes a website can serve.

Your website can be used to raise awareness about any area, topic, or field
You may want to start an online business, sell products, generate inquiries for your business, increase visibility for your business, provide customer service or raise brand awareness
You may be interested in offering online education courses, materials and training.
You may wish to share your skills, talents, thoughts, lifestyle & information with people through a personal blog
You may have a new book to promote
You may build a community of people with similar interests

Think carefully about your precise reason for creating a website.

Research hosting platforms for their features and choose the suitable one

Once you have defined your website’s niche and purpose, it’s time to find a hosting platform for your website. There are many aspects which you should examine while choosing a hosting platform.

Reputation in the market: You might want to check the hosting platform’s uptime performance or server reliability.
Customer Reviews: Explore the customer reviews for the platforms and feedback on social media or review sites to understand customer experiences and satisfaction.
Pricing competitiveness: Do a comparative analysis of the prices and the available features under the various hosting platforms’ plans to find the perfect match for your requirement. Check for the features you need and any additional benefits you can get like free domain, free email account, free site transfer, free SSL certificate, WordPress installation, site builder access, etc.
Renewal charges: Do remember to compare the charges for hosting renewal along with domain renewal if applicable.
Refund policies & free trials: Some web hosting platforms offer money back guarantee or free trials, allowing you to try out the service before making a commitment.
Customer support: Do check reviews about their customer support. Responsive and efficient customer support is essential for swifter resolution of your queries.
Backup & restore policy of the web host: Review their policies for backup and restoration. Check for customisation in the backup schedule(daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) and the robustness of restoration to ensure data protection.
Security: Look for security features like firewall protection, malware scanning and removal, SSL certificate, DDoS protection in the hosting platforms.
Payment methods: Make sure that the platform provides a variety of payment methods for seamless transactions.
Compatibility and integrations: Compatibility with your website requirements and software integrations offered by the hosting platform should also be looked into.

Think of a unique domain name & check availability

Choose a domain name that is simple, memorable and related to your website’s purpose
Generate keyword ideas using ChatGPT or other AI tools to come up with creative names.
Select a domain extension that aligns with your website purpose
Check the availability of the decided domain name on hosting platforms like Godaddy or hostinger
Review domain spam score on Moz and check domain history for any red flags
Conduct a trademark search to avoid potential legal issues
If the desired domain name is not available, look for a closer domain name or another extension
Once you finalize the domain name and extension, buy and register it

Figure out your website audience

Build your audience persona based on your website’s objective
Categorize your audience by demographics, psychographics, geography, and behavior
Always keep your audience in mind while creating website content
Customize your website content including visuals to meet the demand and preferences of your audience – consider what they want to read and connect with
Find where your audience spends the most time online
Do a thorough competitor analysis

Think of the structure of the website

Prepare a wireframe of the website before actually creating the website
Structure of the website should be user-friendly to ensure smooth navigation
Organize the sections based on their importance to the visitors
Also each section should be visually different from each other to break the monotony while the visitor scrolls through your pages
Make the navigation easy for the visitor by giving most relevant tabs and sub-tabs under the broader categories
Present impact figures, customer testimonials, reviews to build trust
Make it as easy as possible for the visitor to notice things relevant to the visitor
Make it easy for the user to reach out to you for any queries and guide them towards desired actions, e.g. sign up
Call out prominently what your website stands for
Highlight your website or brand’s vision, mission, purpose and values through a dedicated About Us section
Ensure proper visibility of your offerings and pricing
Prepare a FAQs section to address general queries as well as a What’s New section for latest updates, news, and more
Keep customer journey in mind and place relevant content at strategic points in the user’s journey

Create and update logo

Create a logo for your website (if one doesn’t exist already) to help your audience recognise and connect with your website
Use an agency service or use free design tools like Canva, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop to design a logo
Look for competitor logos for inspiration
Design the logo in various colors to ensure it adapts well to the different backgrounds

Start preparing content

Create content for all important pages like home, about us, contact us, pricing, and all other relevant pages as per the decided structure
Design all pages thoughtfully with UI/UX best practices for the best user experience
Ensure to use SEO best practices like keywords insertion, meta descriptions, alt tags, etc.

Publish & update content regularly

Publish content after adhering to all the best practices, including SEO
Regular content updates is necessary for consistent traffic
Start putting up blogs, informative articles, new courses, add items and features as per your website type
Regularly update website parts, replace outdated data & fix broken links
Regularly update home page
Keep track of industry trends with Google alerts or trends
Use important days and seasonal trends for content updation

Start monitoring website performance

Once website is up and running, start monitoring its statistics and vital metrics to acquire insights into what is and what isn’t working, as well as whether any content or strategy changes are needed.
Monitor website performance with tools like Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, Crazyegg and Semrush
Optimize website speed with Google Pagespeed Insights for mobile and desktop versions.
Ensure SSL certificate is active for security
Gain insights into audience engagement, conversion, content performance and website growth

And most importantly, enjoy the journey of creating your website.