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Getting A New Website: The Essentials
We provide a brief overview of the options you have for a new website and how we, as a web agency, help our clients navigate them.
You are a business owner.
You have recognized the need for a beautiful new website that performs well, delights customers at a reasonable cost to have it built and operate it.
You start your research, you collect opinions from friends and colleagues, you read online, you look at what the competition is doing. You quickly find yourself swamped by a multitude of options, differing opinions, and more questions than answers. Getting a new website threatens to become yet another area of your business that requires too many decisions to made, risks to be taken, and options weighed.
Don’t worry! We, as experienced web designers, are here to streamline the process and offer a solution that works for you. No stress, no hassle.
In this article, we will provide a brief overview of the options you have for a new website and how we, as a web agency, help our clients navigate them.
At its most fundamental level, every website consists of the same key elements, regardless of who built it and what technology was used. In this section, we will provide a general brief overview of the essential elements of a website, the absolute necessities that you cannot avoid.
In its most basic form, a website is a collection of content (text, images, videos, etc.), which is physically located (hosted) on a computer (called a server) and which can be accessed through a web browser (Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, etc.) using a domain name (e.g. google.com).
As the website owner, these will be the main decisions that you will need to make regarding your website:
- What will the website do?
- What will the website contain?
- Where will the website be located?
- What will the website be called?
Let’s tackle these one by one!
Once you have decided that you want a new website, the first question you will need to answer is what it will be able to do.
Some things may be obvious from the beginning. For example, you know that you want to list your services, provide pricing information, display a gallery of pictures of your office, tell customers about yourself and allow them to write to you via a contact form. For the future, you would like to be able to expand your website with a blog, a news section, versions in different languages, or an online store. You don’t know when you will need these functionalities, but you want to be sure that you can have them if you decide to.
In short, it’s important to have a general idea of what you want your website to do today and what you might want it to be able to do in the future. An answer to these questions will help you narrow down the options on how to proceed with building the website.
For example, some web builder platforms might not be appropriate if you plan to have a big online store in the future. Let’s say that you plan to eventually sell thousands of products online in multiple countries, offering different payment and delivery options. In this case, Webflow, the platform that we as an agency build websites on, might not be ideal. Although it may be possible to build such a website on it, Shopify might be the better option in this case due to its built-in functionalities for e-commerce.
Such an analysis needs to be performed in each individual case, in order to make the website future-proof. Imagine how you would feel having to re-build your website from scratch on a completely different platform because the one you initially chose doesn’t work for you…
As a web agency, we are here to support you in this initial discovery process, to make sure that your website provides the most value to you today and that it will continue to do so in the future.
Most websites today are built on platforms like Wordpress and Webflow or with site builders such as Squarespace or Wix. If you decide to use one of them, you will need to find out if it provides the functionalities you need and, if so, in what way.
For example, most of the basic functionalities of websites are typically contained in the “core” offering of the platforms, but some need to be installed as plugins. Plugins are ready-made solutions, created either by the platform itself or a third party, that provide a specific functionality. For example, you may want to install a plugin that allows you to receive and store contact form submissions. Another example is a plugin that translates your website to a different language or allows you to become easily compliant with data protection laws and regulations.
Plugins use different monetization models. Some are free, some need to be bought once, while still others offer a free tier with a paid subscription option. It is often easy to get lost in the multitude of options available.
To make matters worse, plugins often do not work well together. Installing a plugin might cause something else to break on the site. Especially with free plugins, there often is little to no customer support should you need it. Another risk to be aware of is that plugins need to be manually updated in some instances, representing a security risk if that is not done on a regular basis.
If you decide to entrust the building of your website to us, we will help you navigate these decisions. Luckily, the process of choosing and working with plugins in Webflow, the platform that we use, is streamlined and easy.
Once you have an outline of what your website should be able to do today and in the future, you will next need to decide on the best way to realize it in terms of site content.
Think of any website you are familiar with. It likely contains sections of text, images (photos or illustrations), videos, icons, even animations. All of this content needs to somehow be produced by someone. Some of it you may be able to create entirely on your own or with minimal assistance. In other cases, it might be more appropriate to hire a professional to produce it, e.g. a photographer.
Most importantly, your website needs to be built in accordance with your brand, using its logo, fonts, color palette and overall design direction. If you do not yet have a brand identity, one has to be created for you before you move on with building a website.
As a web agency, we are here to advise you on the many possible routes you can take for the creation of your content, looking at them from different angles. Options will differ in terms of cost, speed, quality, reliability, and might carry hidden risks. If you decide to entrust building your website to us, we can produce most or all of its content for you in partnership with talented professionals.
One popular way of creating a website quickly without starting from scratch is to use themes and templates. Some of these templates are free, while others are paid. For a fee, the creators of some templates offer continued customer support, while others don’t. The templates also differ in the degree of customization they allow.
In most cases, a website owner without extensive web development knowledge will often find a template too limiting. As a rule of thumb, templates and themes are more appropriate for smaller and lower priority projects where some corners can be cut in terms of branding. For example, you may want to use a template for a site where you display your hobbies.
For most other cases, however, we recommend enlisting the services of an experienced web designer or agency to ensure the highest degree of customization and fit to your brand identity.
If you decide to work with us on your new website project, we will build it from scratch on the Webflow platform.
This means that every element you see on your finished site, every box, every image, every paragraph of text, will be meticulously edited and crafted to look precisely as the agreed-upon design. This will also allow us to polish your website down to the smallest detail.
Finally, we will also ensure that your website is adapted to multiple devices such as tablets or smartphones, ensuring the best possible user experience.
The next question is where the website will be physically located, or hosted. There are many possible approaches to this and the technology you use to build the website can determine a lot in this regard.
For example, some website builders, e.g. Wix, only allow websites to be hosted on their platform. In contrast, in most cases involving Wordpress, site owners need to purchase hosting space from a hosting provider in order to install it and run it.
Hosting providers typically operate on a subscription model with different pricing tiers, depending on the specific needs of the site owner. There usually is a low-cost starting tier for small websites.
This approach, however, requires specialized knowledge and we do not recommend it to business owners with no prior web development experience. In practice this means that a web developer needs to be hired for the task and to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
Webflow, the platform that we as a web agency use, allows sites built on it to be exported to another hosting provider, but cannot be edited after that point and may lose some functionality.
In practice this means that most sites built on Webflow will remain hosted on Webflow, which charges a subscription fee for the hosting service. In our experience, this eliminates the need for the client to look for a separate hosting service, simplifying the process. We find Webflow’s hosting service especially fast, reliable and comparable in terms of cost to most other services on the market.
Similar to other platforms, Webflow offers several tiers of pricing and discounts for yearly billing. For most simple websites the Basic tier is an ideal choice. If you decide to entrust building your website to us, we are most likely to recommend this solution.
Finally, as we said earlier, every website needs a domain name.
Think of the domain as the name of the website itself, for example, google.com. It allows users to find your website through a browser, for example Google Chrome. For that reason, the domain name is a crucial piece of the puzzle and an important part of your branding. Your domain name should ideally be short, simple, easy to remember and on brand.
A well-chosen domain name can build trust with the users of your website. The opposite is also true – think of the strange domain names of dodgy websites you might have visited in the past!
You can register a domain name for a fee through various websites. The fee is ongoing. If you stop paying, you lose the rights to your domain name and someone else might register it. It is most common to pay for a domain name on a yearly basis, but you can also prepay for years in the future.
If you decide to work with us on your new website, we will help you navigate the decision and process of choosing and registering a domain, making it as simple as possible.
As we have shown in this article, getting a new website can be a complicated process that requires many options to be weighed and decisions to be made. As with most things in life, every option has its pros and cons and trade-offs must be made along the way.
Whatever the approach you take, you will need to decide on a hosting provider, a domain name and content for your website. While quick and easy solutions are available, for most business websites we recommend enlisting the help of an experienced web designer or agency to ensure quality, smooth out the process, simplify your decision making and provide the most value to you and your clients.
If you have a project for a website, we would love to hear from you!
Get in touch today!
