Making a website using a constructor: where to start

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The emergence of constructor services made the creation of a website a task comparable in complexity to assembling a locker from Ikea. However, in order for your resource to turn out beautiful, convenient and with correctly opening doors, you will need instructions. And she's in our article.

My cousin started his own business: he sells shelving for warehouses. Almost immediately after opening the company, he created a corporate website. And it is right. It doesn't matter what sales techniques you use or how you attract customers. Whatever you do, it's always good to have a decent-looking web presence.

Making a site that looks good, works stably and is convenient for visitors is usually far from cheap, because you may need the services of a designer and programmer. The budget of a start-up company is far from always able to painlessly transfer expenses of this magnitude. You can, of course, find inexpensive specialists, but the result, most likely, will be appropriate - deplorable. If you suddenly have an idea to ask talented friends for help and pay them with little money, or even just friendly gatherings, dismiss it as completely untenable.

There is only one acceptable option - to make the site yourself. Everyone has heard that there are many different constructors that allow you to make a decent site, even if you are never a designer and not a programmer at all. I'll make a reservation that I used to be an opponent of this kind of thing. They say that every work should be done by a professional - let's say "no" to amateur performances! But over time, I realized that I was too critical. Well, why would the owner of a tiny business give 20-50 thousand rubles, spend time and effort discussing design and features, if you can build a website on your own in a couple of days?

Due to the change in my worldview, this article will be devoted to what you need to think about at the initial stage if you decide to use a website builder. To support the post with examples and visuals, let's say we are building a website using the free Wix builder. I am already a little familiar with this product, and I see it as one of the best in its niche.

So, where does the creation of your own Internet resource begin?

Decide what you need a website for

You need to understand, and it is better to write down what tasks your site will solve. Why are you making it, what pages will it have? Give yourself enough time and attention to answer these questions. This is the foundation for building a quality resource.

Advice:so that you have a clear understanding of what your resource will be like, make a prototype of it. There are many services available for this task, but it is often more convenient to sketch a sketch and sitemap on a piece of paper.

Website builders offer hundreds of templates broken down into dozens of sections. There are options for blogs, travel or architecture sites.

To choose from this variety what suits you, you must be clearly aware of what, in fact, you are looking for. For example, a template for creating an online store will be very different from a landing page template.

Decide who your target audience is

Who will you contact using your site? Who are these people: their age, gender? What are their views on life? Where do they work, what do they do in their free time? What are they interested in and why do they need what you offer: a product or a service?

You may have already answered all of these questions when you wrote your business plan. When starting to create a website, you need to understand how you will position your product or service, how to talk about your company and reach out to your audience.

Be sure to carefully study how your competitors are doing it. It may seem to you that it is better not to know this, so as not inadvertently to copy someone's successful ideas. But the point is different: in order to occupy your niche in the market, you need to understand what exactly you will be beneficial to distinguish from the rest.

Choose a domain name and hosting

Choosing a domain name is a task that isolates you from reality for at least a day. All you will do is come up with variants of names or generate them in special services and check if this domain is already occupied or you are in luck. There is no point in repeating how important it is to come up with a short, capacious name that reflects the essence of your business.

Choosing a domain name, you will face another rather serious problem - the need to find a hosting that will host your site. This is where the help of a professional would be very useful, who could advise on how to choose the optimal combination of the quality of the hosting services provided and the price. Here it is appropriate to make another nod to Wix: these guys provide free hosting, saving you unnecessary headaches.

Choose a color scheme and style

Don't assume that by choosing a template, you will be doomed to be like other resources that have also preferred it. No. Each template can be modified in every possible way: select the appropriate color scheme, styles of fonts, pictures. The joy is that you don't even need to understand the basics of programming, all the elements change and move with a click of the mouse. You will enjoy being able to create quickly and easily.

Personally, I'm always afraid to make the site look lurid. It seems there is an understanding of how the page should look, but there is a little lack of a sense of color and style. For people like me, Wix has a wonderful thing: a built-in tool for color picking and font scheme.

Prepare your content

If you are not friendly with graphic programs and do not have very good spatial thinking, then you probably feel sincere joy that you do not even need to do a layout of the website design. Hooray! No sketches or attempts to come up with original social media buttons. But you still have to work on the content.

Photos and pictures must be legal and as unique as possible. And the texts are not only unique, but also easy to read, without grammatical errors. If desired, their writing can be outsourced: the cost of quite suitable copywriting is not so high. However, there are questions that you must answer on your own and in detail before you start working on the content:

• What content will be on each page?
• What action will each page push visitors to: to purchase a product, register, subscribe, order a service?

Here are some guidelines for what content should be:

1. Relevant. Try to keep the pages of your resource always fresh information. Outdated information about a company or "news" from a year ago will make visitors wonder about your legal capacity.
2. A call to action. Place two or three (but not more!) Calls to action on the home page: "Go to shopping", "View our work" and so on. They will gently nudge visitors to take more action.
3. Structured. The endless "sheet" of the text will not arouse enthusiasm in anyone. Use formatting capabilities: subheadings, lists, highlighting important phrases. This facilitates the perception of information.
4. Catching. Remember, the visitor has little time and even less desire to read "watery" and useless texts. Each text must solve a problem or answer a question, only then will it be read. Pay special attention to headings. They primarily attract the attention of visitors.

For inspiration and to shape your idea, take a look at other sites built using Wix.

Publish your site and don't forget about its development

You thoroughly studied your site while building it. Surely it seems to you that everything is conveniently and logically arranged on it, the texts call for proper action, and the design does not hurt the eye. However, this is solely your opinion, and it would be nice to approve it at least among a small group of users.

Ask your friends, relatives, acquaintances to look at your page and tell about your feelings: what you liked, what you didn’t like, whether it is convenient to work with the site, whether there were any errors or problems. It is better to draw up a questionnaire in advance. This will make it easier for your focus group to understand what exactly needs to be paid attention to, and you will get fairly specific answers.

It is not at all necessary to make absolutely all the proposed changes; pay attention only to justified criticism. Now you can publish your site! Publishing is a joyous moment, but it is not the end of the work. You have set the sails up, but you need to fill them with wind.

Constantly develop your site:

1. Do search engine optimization so that your site appears on the first page of search results, and ideally in the top.
2. Update content periodically. This will improve indexing and increase audience interest in your resource.
3. Develop interaction with your audience using mailings, promotions and contests on social networks.

We hope that this article will inspire you and that there will be more useful and beautiful sites. Good luck!