Website Pre-Requisites
Keywords
What are the keywords used in your industry specific to your business? Create a list of these words.
What are the keywords used by your customers when describing your products and services? Create a list of these words.
How do you describe your location in terms of region, city, town and suburb. Create a list of these words.
Compile a list of 2,3,4 word phrases that would be used in describing your business using the words above. Consider Internet user general searching and then specific searching.
Type each phrase into Google search and note how many exact matches to the phrase are on the first page. Look both at the titles and description. Lots of exact matches = lots of competition. Little exact matches means you could get to page 1 with the phrase.
Google Adwords Keyword Planner can find out how much Internet traffic is present for any phrase. This tool can also suggest alternative phrases. Paste your phrase list into the tool and export the results in a spreadsheet. Other people can do this for you.
Look at the spreadsheet results. Look for phrases that receive 1000's of uses per month but have little competition. Three and four word phrases will have less competition.
Consider how a customer would reach your website via a general search, evaluation of alternative, product category and individual product. Which phrases do you need to cover in web pages?
Keyword Action Steps
- Do I have enough phrases with enough traffic to make a website worthwhile?
- Should I rethink or redo my keyword phrases?
- How many web pages do I need for visitors to become customers? Consider broad and specific Internet searching.
- Who will create the website content? In house or external parties.
- Will my website content stay the same or change frequently? e.g. Business Information website, Business eCommerce website.
- Who will monitor how well the website is going and where the vistors/customers are coming from using which phrases. This is useful for Business planning and strategy.
Domain Name and Hosting
Domain Name: A unique name for a website on the Internet. e.g. www.mybusiness.com.au , www.mybusiness.com , www.mybusiness.org, www.abc.net.au
Hosting: A place to put your website files remotely to be available on the Internet. This can include computer storage, email addresses, databases and web server software.
A Domain Name and Hosting can be ordered together from the same business. This cost is roughly $100 per year. e.g. Australian https://www.ziphosting.com.au/ , USA https://www.bluehost.com/
There is a slight advantage to having your website hosted in the country where most of your customer will be coming from.
The ideal domain name will have your main keywords and be easy to spell. e.g. www.townsvilleplumbing.com
Note: Australia domain names with suffix .com.au require business names to includes the words of the domain name. International domain such as .com , .net , .org do not have this restriction.
Simple static website requirements: Nearly any hosting will suit. Look for good reputations, high availability and fast connections to the Internet.
Complex changing websites: The sites usually have a content management system (CMS) e.g. Wordpress or Joomla. A CMS can allow the addition and editing of website content using just an Internet browser. This software is free. For Hosting they require Apache (web server software), MySQL (database), and PHP (programming language). This is a very common hosting configuration. Once the CMS is installed then there are over 5000 extenstions that can be added for special functions like visual theme, eCommerce, Social media sharing, search box and contact form. Some extensions have costs associated with them. This style of website requires regular maintenance in terms of updates and security fixes.
Types of Websites
Niche website - Small website with lower number of web pages. These can be useful to have a local digital presence with links to reach your business.
Authority website - Large website with many webpages and extensive links from other websites. This will generate a lot of traffic over time.
Membership website - A website can have a open access and a member only access sections. Membership lists can also be used for email marketing. Memberships can be in the form of paid subscriptions. Subscription can be self service.
Blog website - A website with regular individual's updates. This can include advertising and affiliate links for revenue.
eCommerce website - Website with product search, product listings and online payments. New sales can be seen by email or using administrator back end access to the website. Try to make product pages unique and not simple copy and paste manufacturer descriptions. Duplicate pages around the Internet are less likely to be indexed by search engines. Consider adding longer worked section articles, adding customer reviews, how to videos embedded, testimonials, customer using product photos etc to the web pages.
Custom website - A website is a little like a remote server. You can create systems to automatically generate content and upload the reports to the website for display. e.g. Financial reports, combining datasets reports, beach condition photos undated daily etc. This will require programming and integration skills. Large companies may have an intranet website with this style of reporting from thier own server.
Website Prerequisite Work Area
Put your website prerequsite answers here and copy then out. Paste them into an email, website scope document, project plan etc. Ctrl A (select all), Ctrl C (copy), Ctrl V (paste)
