There are approximately 600 million published blogs and websites on the Internet, so making yours stand out from the crowd is a challenging task. It is super easy to create a personal space on the Internet these days, thanks to companies such as WordPress and Wix simplifying the process, but while building a website is a simple task, creating a high-quality blog or website requires some planning on your part.
People create websites for a multitude of reasons. Some build a website to promote their business, while others love writing as a hobby and want a platform to showcase their work. Others use blogs as a portfolio for their art, with others creating spaces that highlight their achievements and services, thus making them look more professional and boosting their credibility. Whatever your reasons for becoming a webmaster, you should look to build the best website possible. How do you do that? You start by reading this article.
Your Websites Address is The Most Important Component
A person’s name is a critical component of their identity; the same is true for a website. You can choose any URL for your site, within reason, but it is essential to select one that is memorable, lets a visitor know exactly what to expect, and is unique. Visitors to coca-cola.com instantly know they are at the website of the soft drinks giant. Can you imagine how ridiculous it would be if Coca-Cola used a URL like bestwoodendoors.com? Try to find an available URL that visitors instantly know what to expect. This rule applies regardless of your website specializing in using cryptocurrency online, flower arranging, or a dog walking service.
It is worthwhile spending time searching through all of the available URLs to find one that is perfect. Avoid complicated URLs that substitute numbers for letters or that are funky spellings of words or local slang. Also, try to keep your URL short and to the point. You must remember that a human needs to remember your URL once they have seen it. A URL such premiumstationary.com is far better than thebestwritingmaterialsever.com.
Do not Scrimp and Save on Web Hosting
You need to look into the various web hosting options once you have nailed down your URL. These companies host your website on their servers and make it active online. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies offering to host your blog or website, each claiming to be the best and cheapest, so delving into some of the various features to narrow your search is worthwhile.
Available disk space is the first feature to consider, especially if you have a media-rich website. Those webmasters creating content full of images and videos require more disk space than someone who predominantly publishes text-based content.
Bandwidth and speed is another crucial component of a web hosting company. Studies show that a mere two-second delay in a website loading increases the bounce rate by over 100%. Furthermore, more than half of mobile users leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Speed is literally of the essence.
Dedicated hosting, where your website is hosted separately from others the company hosts, is more expensive but worth it for faster speeds.
All web hosting companies worthy of your business display their uptime. Avoid any company that does not have at least 99.5% uptime as a bare minimum. Some web hosting providers provide 99.9% uptime, which is ideal because it means that, on average, websites they host are only unavailable 0.1% of the time throughout the year, which is negligible.
Responsive Themes Are a Must-Have
It is time to consider the look and feel of your website now that you have a stellar URL and have signed up with a top-tier web hosting provider. Regardless of the colors and layout of your website’s theme, it is imperative that you choose a responsive theme.
Responsive themes automatically alter their layout depending on the screen size on which they are displayed. For example, a responsive theme will be optimally displayed for someone visiting your site on a 32-inch widescreen 4K monitor as it would if they stumbled across your little corner of the Internet via their smartphone.
More than half of internet traffic comes from people using their mobile phones or tablets, so not having a responsive website means you are risking losing more than 50% of your potential traffic; there is not a company in the world that can afford to leave more than half of its potential customers at the door.
Believe it or not, the colors you use for your website influence a reader’s mood. For example, the color red incites excitement, danger, action, and urgency. Have you ever noticed that most stickers and posters informing people of a sale or reduced prices are almost always red? It is not a coincidence.
Greens prompt responses such as youth, nature, and stability, while purples make people think of luxury, romance, and calmness.
Your website theme’s color scheme is entirely your choice. However, please spend some time researching color psychology in marketing because it can make a substantial difference to the visitors you attract and how they engage with your content.
Regular, Unique Content is the Key
Well done for getting this far because now it is time to do what you do best: create stellar content for your perfectly crafted website! Any content you post, be it a written article, photographs, graphics, or video, should always be unique and never duplicate content.
Keep your subject matter exciting and new, avoiding corporate speak, jargon, and acronyms. Everyone has a writing style they default to, but writing like you are talking to someone in the street has the best results for engagement and keeps visitors coming back for more.
It is important to regularly publish fresh content on your website, even if you only do this once per week. Try to post something new at the same time and at the same time because humans are creatures of habit and tend to return to blogs and websites at times they have previously seen new articles or posts.