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You want to create a personal or professional website , showcase, one-page or e-commerce, alone or with an agency, … And for that you want to have a structured approach in the form of a checklist to be sure not to forget anything.
It is true that today when you search for information on the internet, it is easy to find yourself overwhelmed by the mass of information and not to find the answer to your questions. This is why we have broken down step by step the logical and optimum path to design and deploy your website.
We were inspired to write this blog article first and foremost by our consistent experience on the subject with several dozen projects carried out this year, but also by two of the reference works, in our opinion, on the subject, namely:
At Christmas, before you want to eat the turkey, you have to cook it, and well in the design of a website, it’s the same, you don’t have to rush.
First of all, you have to decide on the type of site you want to create (showcase site, e-commerce, blog, etc.) based on your business objectives (sell products, generate visibility, traffic, etc.).
Then clearly define your business and commercial objectives as well as the internal or external team in charge of the project.
You should also verify the positioning of your business and that of your competitors through an SEO analysis and a competitive audit. This will allow you to subsequently set up your SEO and SEA strategy .
The creation of a website is done by many steps which each have a cost, so it is important to establish a schedule and a budget. But also a communication protocol so that your potential customers can discover you on social networks for example.
Another point is to be taken into account in your website web project. It’s important to think about your brand name and buy a domain name , because it not only represents your identity on the web, but also protects you from competition who might want to hinder you.
Remember, of course, to check that your brand is available on the INPI website, if this is the case, register it, then block all variations of your domain name in “.com” and “.fr” at a minimum.
Ditto for social networks create as soon as your brand is registered the corresponding pages on the relevant social networks.
For every decision, keep in mind the site’s goals, audience needs, key messages, and brand personality.
At each step, you have to think about the users. That is to say, identify them and build personas in their image to create scenarios for using the site.
Collect the points of view of the main users to better know your target and thus meet their expectations.
Consider mobile experience and social experience because today user experience is very important in Google SEO.
Imagine the site by putting yourself in the shoes of your future visitors and adapting routes for each of the personas you have identified.
Quality content is one of the two criteria put forward in Google SEO. This is why it is important to establish a content strategy for your static pages and for your blog.
So, first, it’s important to do some keyword research to find out in your industry, “what are users looking for the most on the internet?”.
It is also fundamental to know what are the keywords and expressions used by Internet users to search for your future services on the web and then to use them in your content strategy and in the markup of the site at the level of the famous metadata.
This will make it easier to know what topic to write about for your blog posts. But also center each of your static pages on a main keyword.
Plan an editorial calendar with, over the 12 months following the launch of the site, the articles to be written, their content and the target keywords on which you want to be well positioned in Google results.
Plan the overall architecture of your site with the different sections and sub-sections, trying to have no content more than 3 clicks from the home page in order to be certain that they are visited by Google robots. .
But the internal and external backlinks will also be of paramount importance, because it is what will allow the Google robot to move on your site from one page to another and thus be certain that all the pages are well. indexed.
Note that for your blog posts, the character count of your content will be important and therefore should be defined before the writing procedure.
Before embarking on the development of your website, it is crucial to decide on the architecture of it as well as the functionalities it should have.
Concerning the architecture, the important and structuring points are:
For an e-commerce site, the possibility of ordering and buying your products online;
It is also ideal to build a functional model of the site (with the choice of your colors, fonts, etc.) to respond to the architecture decided on beforehand. This will make it easier to know where to put each page content.
Then it is advisable to create prototypes before creating the site itself. You can more easily carry out usage tests and thus ensure that there are no problems or correct any errors that have occurred.
Show the prototypes to your future customers and take their feedback into account because it is easier to modify a model than the site once it is developed.
Depending on the progress of the project, you can start building your development plan .
Make sure the site design conveys the core attributes of your brand platform and highlights your structure and offerings.
The responsiveness of your site must be taken into account, because since September 2019 Google has clearly indicated that the adaptability of your website is important (mobile, tablet, …) in its SEO algorithm as well as its loading speed as part of of the mobile-first index.
Optimize all of your images so as not to weigh down the loading speed of your site. Your images should not exceed 2 MB.
Also note that it is important that you create your own texts, images and videos to offer unique content to your users or that at least your content is really original (easy to check with tools such as Copyscape which track plagiarism ).
Harmonize your design on all of your pages, if this has not already been done.
Remember to optimize the content of each page, keeping in mind that you must both please visitors by providing them with the information they are looking for, but also Google robots by demonstrating your expertise in your field.
This production step corresponds to the confirmation of your development plan and therefore to the last step before setting up your site.
You will need to install a CMS ( Content Management System ) in English to facilitate updates unless you decide to develop a site in pure code.
This step is also important because you will check if all of your pages have been optimized and if your content has been added to the predestined pages. It’s important to create categories for your articles, but they should make sense.
A word of advice: you can apply the regulations for the visually impaired to allow them to use software to read your texts aloud or to enlarge them.
Launch a first version and test there, with a limited audience to ensure that there are no bugs and that all features are operational. Click on all the buttons, all the links, test with different mobiles and note all the points to be corrected before putting your site online for the public.
You don’t have to wait for your site to be perfect, you can publish it immediately and improve it as you go. Because you have to make users want to come back.
It is also advisable to promote the launch of your site within your company but also with your potential customers on social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) for example to bring traffic.
You can install a data analysis system program, follow them day by day and thus check if you are meeting your predefined objectives beforehand.
It is true that everyone can create their website, but it is still important to know a minimum. Because having a beautiful site is useless if it is not visible on search engines and thus you do not have visitors.
You can therefore call on an agency like Searchbooster to help you throughout this process and thus make your life easier!
Anne-Lyne CABARROU
digital project manager