How to Design a Website when you’re Not a Website Designer?
Do you know, your website is the face of your online business?
Yes, it is the best medium of communication between you and visitors.
Many a times visitors are more likely to leave your website just by its appearance.
Yes, people do neglect your website if it fails to amaze them, without even looking for what they were searching. You may have exceptional products and services, but if you fail to display them in a correct way on your website then it may be a reason behind your business failure.
In today’s digitalized world, everyone uses the internet for one or the other purpose.
You might don’t know, but before actually visiting your shop, the client chooses to check your website first to gain some knowledge about you. Now you can understand that your website interacts first with your clients and then you come into a picture. Your website should be able to catch the eyes of your audience, at a first glance itself.
“Website without visitors is like a ship lost in the horizon.”
― Dr. Christopher Dayagdag
This simply means that every business should have a website regardless of the size of a business, your customer base, your product base, etc. And if you already have a website then you are already a step ahead from the crowd. But make sure that you update your website from time to time. Now, all of you might think that having a website is a good idea, but designing and developing it will cost you beyond your budget. Again after that, you will have to update it to keep your website up to date and fresh.
Well, I think you are partially correct.
Yes, correct at your thought of having a website is a good idea.
And wrong at having thought that it will cost yours beyond your budget.
Let’s see how is it possible.
What do you need to build a website?
A web designer and web developer, who can develop a website as per your choice and idea. Is it?
Again you will have to pay them to get your website done and you may need to pay them at a later stage also, at the time of its update.
But, what if I tell you, that you don’t have to hire a designer or a developer?
Does that sound great?
Yes, you can totally skip the hiring part by developing your own website which can save your large amount.
To develop a website, is it absolutely fine even if you don’t have the technical developing knowledge.
With the help of few right website development tools and some basic tips, even newbie can create a great site.
Are you excited to know more about how you can create website on your own?
Then this article will surely guide you, to create your dream site.
Easy steps to design a website : The Basics
To design a website without having any designing knowledge, you will have to follow these three steps :
1) Choose a secure web hosting
2) Select a free website building tool
3) Add valuable content
Let’s dive deep.
Related: A Complete Guide to Selecting the Best Colors for Your Website
1. Choose a secure web hosting
Every website needs a place where it can be kept and that place is called hosting. So before creating a website make sure that you have decided the best place for your website. You will need a domain name or URL so that when your website is hosted, people will be able to see it on the internet. There are hundreds of web hosting companies present in the world, but you will need to make sure that you choose the web hosting that will offer you feature rich hosting service.
Related: How Web Hosting Affects SEO Ranking? Check These 5 Factors
Tips to choose a secure web hosting are :
(i) Uptime – The reliability of your website depends on its uptime. Uptime of minimum 99% is feasible for your website.
(ii) Storage – Do you have a blog or a website with lots of images and videos?
The storage space depends on the content that you will use on your website. It is easy to decide the storage space according to your website size, as a site with more images and videos will need more space.
(iii) Type of storage – Gone are the days of traditional hard drives. To get faster performance for your website you must choose the pure SSD storage.
(iv) Bandwidth – To manage the heavy website you need adequate bandwidth and this may change as per the changes are done in the website on a later stage. So it is good if you choose a hosting plan with Unlimited Bandwidth from the start itself.
(v) Scalability – Traffic on your website is not going to be the same for all days. Your resources need to be upscale and downscale according to the visitor’s visit to your site, so make sure that your hosting provider is able to scale your hosting services during the peak time. There may not much need to downscale a website but you can’t compromise on the upscaling service.
(vi) Malware protection – Cyber crimes are increasing day by day and to keep your website secured you should get malware protection from your hosting provider. They should keep a continuing watching on your website to keep it away from malware threats, DDoS attacks or any other vulnerabilities.
(vii) Support – Your website is going to work 24/7 so will are definitely going to need support all around the clock. There are providers that work for you 24/7/365 days, don’t miss on them.
Don’t just go by the name and fame of a company, invest some to identify the reality. Check out their websites, features, price and what their present customers talk about them. Head to head comparison is the best thing to do in this case.
2. Select a free website building tool
To start your online journey you must have a well-designed website. Once you have registered a hosting account and domain name, the next step comes to figure out how you can design your own website that will be able to manage your tasks easily.
The easy website builder tool –
With MilesWeb’s free website builder tool, you can create your website in less than 1 hour and make it live as soon as it gets created. To use this tool you don’t need any kind of coding knowledge. You get an option to select a theme from hundreds of themes available. The themes are well categorized and you can select the one that best suits your business. The next step comes to add content to your website. Adding content in the form of text, images, videos, etc. to the site is not that difficult with the site builder. This tool allows you to just drag and drop your content into the theme selected by you. That’s it, and your website gets ready in no time.
3. Add Valuable Content
Remember content has the power to drive traffic to your website. It is the best way to keep your visitors engage to you for a longer duration. Make sure that you design the website pages that will influence your visitors and to do so, you must put up the information that is really valuable for your customers. You can add information about your USP or any other product that is different from your competitors. You can have as many web pages as possible, just don’t make it boring for your visitors and it should not be complicated either. They must understand what they are looking for and where they are landing on. Some of the web pages that you should pay special attention to are :
(i) Home Page –
This is the most important page of your site. Where you need to list down all the creamy materials that you sell. This page must include all the top things that visitors must know to increase their buying interest. Write down about your business, what you do, what you offer in a brief but powerful way in the form of :
- Tagline: To give a brief introduction.
- Contact Information: Include main contact information such as email id, phone number, etc for customers to contact you.
- Call-to-action: You can add a newsletter or anything that you want your visitors to notice before they leave your website.
- Products /Services: Try to accommodate the full features, of your products and services and don’t forget to give the internal linking to other important services/products.
- Sign-up form: Make an easy form for visitors to leave their information. Don’t make the form too lengthy.
- Testimonials: Give a curiosity to your valuable customers, those who have taken extra effort to give positive and valuable feedback about you and the business. This increases a trust factor between you and your customers and clients.
(ii) Product/Service Page :
Here is a chance for you to break down your products and services, with the appealing images and descriptions about them. Try to use real images of your products like bags, shoes, clothes, etc. If real it is not possible to use real images for some products then try to use some related but HD images. Also, use short videos explaining the working of your product or the working environment in your office. Also include pricing information, payment options, shipping information, and return policy.
(iii) About page :
This is a dedicated page for your story only. You may include photos of your team with a short biography, write about company biography, about the founders or awards won.
(iv) Contact page :
The contact page should contain the easiest methods via which clients can reach out to you. You can include email address, postal address, phone number, Skype id, etc.
(iv) Testimonial page :
Testimonial page helps to build trust for you among your visitors. People will look for the testimonial page to find out how far you go to help your customers and what makes you different from others.
While doing all this make sure that you keep your website simple and clean. Most of the professional website looks decent and are very easy to navigate. Make sure that your website gets loaded in max to max 4 seconds. This will surely increase your visitors’ user experience, and will ultimately they will find something worthwhile they are surfing through your site.
Each copy submitted by you on your website should deliver useful and accurate information about your business. Make your visitors read about your policies, practices, prices, etc. while going through the website. Use a clear text font and color that is pleasing to read, do not over each paragraph with the words. Use images only where they are needed and make sure the information is updated every time something new gets added or subtracted.
Design from the SEO point of view –
Optimize your website content as per the SEO protocols that means don’t do the keyword stuffing or any such activity that can hamper your site’s performance. A good informative website will surely rank higher on search engines like Google, Yahoo, etc. if SEO is done properly.
Browser and device compatibility –
You don’t know, which browser will be used by your audience. So make sure that the site performs faster on all the major browsers. The better idea will be to check it on a few big browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera this will save your time and efforts of checking all the browsers.
Similarly, you are not aware of the device used by your visitor. But remember mobile users are increasing day by day, so make your website responsive on mobile also. Check its compatibility and performance on mobile, desktop and tablets.
After doing everything that has been discussed, don’t forget to take a test drive of your website. Show it to your friends and families and take the feedbacks. Try to consider their opinions and only after you are fully satisfied, make your website live on the internet.
Summing up –
From the above article, you might have understood that you don’t need to hire a special web developer for your website. Just a little smart work and creativity from your side is enough to get your dream website design, which will definitely save your money and even you will fill great for yourself for designing your own website.