Taking your business online is nothing to fear. These basic website development tips aim to steer you in the right direction.
You’ve got your product or service, a solid business plan for your future, a bit of investment, and a whole lot of can-do attitude. Now you need to tell the world—and a strong online presence is the best way to do that. But website development can be overwhelming, and a drain on your precious business resources if you don’t have a clear and well thought-out approach to getting what your company wants and needs from being online. Here are a few questions and website development tips new businesses need to answer to help grow their online presence.
In-house or agency?
Depending on scale, scope, and budget, there are an almost limitless number of options for website development out there. If you’re confident you or your team have the skills and know-how, it’s not too difficult to have website development brought in-house, whether with a dedicated developer, or somebody who’s knowledgeable about customising WordPress or other similar services. In-house development has the benefit of rapid response, closer working relationships, and the possibility to update on the fly.
If you’re going through an agency, you need to develop your own plan and schedule for the work they’ll do for you, and maintain a solid working relationship with clear communications channels to get the best out of the work. Using an agency lets you outsource a lot of the technical skills, and can bring in a dedicated expertise that you might otherwise find hard to hire, for example you might want to have access to a specific skill set for mobile apps, or secure ecommerce platforms.
Are you mobile?
Mobile web browsing
has overtaken traditional desktop browsing in the last few years. Making sure your site works well on all mobile formats is no longer optional; responsive design is king, and without it you’ll be losing potential customers before they’ve even had a chance to view your offer.
There are various approaches to optimising websites for mobile use, with the most popular being responsive websites. Know your needs, question your development agency or team, and work with them to find the system that works best to optimise your offer in as many formats as possible, or at the very least the ones you have identified as being most relevant to your customer base.
Are you original?
While it’s easy to have a clear and strong idea of why your business is filling a gap in the market and offering something new or better to your potential customers, getting that across in a crowded marketplace can be a tricky prospect. Getting a strong design concept is essential—from logo to user experience, elements should be planned around having a distinctive identity to help you stand out. Check what your rivals are doing—you need to be different enough to have your own identity, but be at least as professional as their offerings.
What’s on trend?
From design to programming languages, the internet moves quickly and new web development trends are reported all the time. It’s important to research what’s hot in the marketplace, as change happens fast and appearing out-of-date online will turn a lot of potential customers away.
There are many resources to find out what’s hot and what’s not in the world of tech. So do your research and make sure you know what you’re going to be basing your online business around before you commit, as it’s much harder to change once you’re fully invested in a particular system.
Once you run with these basic website development tips, you’ll be ready to start building out your online presence and get the attention you deserve.
