7 Steps Before Building Your Website

Whether you’re creating your website from a blank slate or redesigning the whole thing, it can be a daunting task for a business owner.

The worse part is when you have to go through the process all over again because the foundation, aka: planning, wasn’t done from the start. That’s wasted budget and time.

Here are the 7 crucial steps you need to take BEFORE starting to redesign your website, whether it’s e-commerce, blogging, or service-based.

1. Know your business and simplify where possible.

A lot of new businesses (and some that have been around for a while) are trying to do way too much - especially on their website. They clutter their site with 10 different offering without any data to back up their wants.

Hone in on your top offerings. Whether they’re one-on-one coaching or your podcast - what’s the top thing you’ll be focusing on as you go into the next phase of your marketing? Write down that top one and add some sub-goals.

Already have a website? PERFECT! Look at your analytics and see what your most popular content is or what you sell the most of. Then make the decisions based on real numbers, not just guess work.

2. Know your target market better than they know themselves.

Start getting to know your target market as well as you can. Are you in the beginning phases of your business? Find people who would be dream clients and interview them. Tech makes it so easy nowadays.

Have you had your business for a while? Even better! Look at who is buying form you, what they’re buying then go out there and chat with them.

You want to know how they’re describing the problem you’re looking to solve, the solutions they’ve tried - or if they even know that there’s a problem.

A few other things you need to know from your target market before starting on your website.

Demographics

Where do they live? How much money they make? Do they have kid? Are they married? Single?

Psychographics

Who do they admire? What brands do they frequently buy from and which ones do they aspire to purchase? What are their goals in their careers/business? How do they feel about the environment? How likely are they to pay for your service? Do they have the willingness to pay but not the funds?

3. Know your competition and understand what they’re doing.

Same as your business target market, you’ll want to know who you’re competing against and what they’re doing with their website.

So start stalking them, their website and their social media. Free tools like SpyFu can help you take a peek into their keywords and marketing.

When looking through their website, look for:

• How they’re treating images.

• The way their copy (aka text) speaks to the customers.

• The use of their brand colors.

• Any features that help the user experience.

• How they mapped out the site.

Who do you look at? Look at those businesses at your level and above. I.E. from a local boutique to Nordstrom. Are you not a beginner anymore (congrats!), keep an eye out on new competition and what they’re doing on their website and marketing.

4. Understand your website’s brand voice, feeling and style.

The smoothest projects I’ve completed have been with business owners who understand their brand voice really really well. They know the feeling that the brand needs to bring out and the voice of the brand, whether it’s gentle, fun, or masculine.

I recommend knowing the feeling and voice way before jumping into your colors and other website styling. Why? You’ll avoid having to redo the website and all your lovely visuals when you realize you had it wrong the whole time.

There’s a podcast episode I did recently on exactly this. Check out that conversation with Danielle Lim and let me know what you think.

Before starting on your website, make sure to have at least an idea of color schemes and fonts. This will make the graphic design process so much smoother!

5. Do some basic keyword research for your website.

Although S.E.O. is an ongoing portion of your website tasks that requires time and sometimes money - you should still plan on doing some small amount of research.

Start by seeing what your competition is ranking for. Use free tools like SpyFu or Ubersuggest to take a peek behind their website. Write down the keywords they’re ranking for. To that list, add words or phrases you believe would work. Then, use something like the Keyword Planner in Google Adwords to check in on these terms.

Finally, before building out your website, at least choose 5 pillars you want to go after. For example, “Small Business Websites” could be one of them. You’d then keep your content around that topic.

Keep in mind, there are people who make their entire lives around S.E.O. because it’s such a deep topic but this should at least help you out a little.

6. Plan out your pages at a high level.

Now, you’ll want to plan out your website pages at a high level. Outline them from most important to least. An example would be:

• Home

• About

• Service A

• Service B

• Free Offering

• Contact

Have an e-commerce website? You’d do something more like this:

• Most important collection

• Second important collection

• Third important collection

• Fourth important collection

• Sale

Then list out the additional pages that aren’t as important. For example, the al a carte services page could just be linked to from another page or if one of your e-commerce collections is Dresses, the less important could be Prom Dresses.

Next up? Even less important pages. At least, they’re less important when it comes to design but will keep you legally legit. These are

• Privacy Policy

• Terms and Conditions

• Accessibility Statements

Note that I’m not a lawyer and don’t play one on TV, so go ask one.

7. Choose the right platform.

Before choosing one, think of your answer to these questions:

1. Will I be DIYing the site?

2. Will I be the one keeping it backed up and updated?

3. Do I foresee myself moving my site to a less expensive host?

4. Do I see myself adding cool features like e-commerce, memberships, and more to the website in the next 3 years?

5. What’s my budget for the website?

6. Do I have a fund for a developer when things break down?

Now you can look into the different platforms and their offerings. For example, if you want to start with a simple site but in the next year, add a mega membership site, I’d recommend Wordpress. Squarespace just started offering Member Areas (as of this posting in Dec 2020) but it’s not going to be terribly robust.

Looking to start an online store? You could look into both Wordpress and Shopify. They’re both pretty good with e-commerce websites.