4 tips to create a websiteThere’s a lot to consider when creating a website, whether it’s a private blog, a company website or an online store. You’ll need to factor in your budget, the quality you desire, as well as setting up your domain and user-interaction. To get you started, here are four great tips to help you get started making a website.

Your Domain

When setting up a new website, you have two primary options – hire a web designer to create your own site from scratch, or use a host like WordPress to setup and manage your own site. The advantages of using a web design company, or a freelance web designer, are that they can tailor your site to your exact requirements. On the other hand, it can get pretty pricey, and you’ll likely need to pay for maintenance as well.

With hosts like WordPress, you have a few hundred preset designs to choose from, and can still customize it to suit your needs. For a small fee, you can have your own domain name, rather than the .wordpress.com URL. It also makes managing your own site easy, and you’ll still be able to get help when you need it on the help forum.

Content

Upload quality content on a regular basis to keep your audience engaged. The content should be interesting, informative and relevant to your site.

When running your own blog, you’ll likely be producing a lot of your own content, along with guest-writers or ghost-writers. You can also upload sponsored content to generate an income, or install an Adsense plugin to advertise on your site.

As for image content, people are naturally visual creatures, so good quality image content is a must. Buying images or hiring a photographer is expensive no matter which way you look at it. Sites like Burst by Shopify offer free stock photos, and you have quite a range to choose from within your niche.

Load Time

Keeping your load time minimal will really add to the success of your site. People tend to shy away from sites that take more than a few seconds to load. Site speed is also used as a ranking factor by Google, particularly on mobile internet searches.

You can speed up load time by compressing images, uploading them in the right size and using jpeg or png formats, as they load much faster than other formats. Combine elements where possible to cut down on HTTP requests, which will slow down your site. Extra plugins will also add to load time, so avoid them if they aren’t necessary.

User Interaction

Make sure your website is user-friendly, meaning it’s easy to navigate and easy to interact with. Simple things like enabling comments on your posts will make a huge difference. It should also be mobile-friendly, or have a .mobi version for those browsing on their smartphones.

Link to your posts on social media allow users to subscribe via email. This helps to keep your audience engaged and up to date. The quality of your site – both the visual aspect and the content – and how well you relate to and interact with your audience, will all impact the success of your website.