Domain Name Registration

Registering your domain name can be a confusing process.

We wouldn’t recommend that you go with the large companies, simply because (some of them) can make it hard to transfer domains elsewhere.

Domain names cost a little less £10.00 per year to register.

We recommend Namecheap.com.

This is the first step in creating your website, registering your domain name.

This will then need to be connected to your website hosting.

We have no affiliation with Namecheap, and our website service actually covers your domain name registration.

Website Hosting

Your website hosting is the server space that gets your business online.

The cost of website hosting starts from as cheap at £1.00 per month, to £1000’s of pounds per month for large enterprise websites.

Many website developers offer website hosting in their service, while others will recommend hosting packages.

Our service covers your website hosting, for example.

Others will recommend WordPress hosting packages elsewhere, and many of the large domain providers offer their own ‘website builders’ as part of the website hosting associated with their service.

There are a lot of choices out there.

We would recommend going with simple WordPress hosting.

It gets the job done. And doesn’t stack up unnecessary costs.

Email Addresses

An email address associated with your website.

It can be crucial to maintain a professional image.

Most domain providers will allow the ability to purchase an email address, allowing you to send and receive emails from an email address associated with your domain name.

It all depends on your service, but many domain providers will charge up to £10 per month for a simple email address.

Many website designers will include your hosting (and email address) within their service.

Whenever possible, we recommend sticking with some of the larger names such as Microsoft, Zoho, Google.

Website Design

Now you’ve done all the hard part such as registering your domain name, you can get onto to the easy bit.

Designing your website!

Listen to any of the Wix commercials and you would think this was the case.

Unfortunately, creating a website that works is not as easy as building something simple on the Wix builder.

You must first consider your business aims and how your website will assist you achieving your goals.

Then it’s all about your customers.

What do they want to see, and how do you want to portray your business to them?

And then you can write the content, create some lovely pages and have people flock to your website, ready to do business.

Not quite.

We are a website design agency, so we understand it’s not that simple.

There are plenty of website builders on the internet, we all know of Wix and the various large platforms that allow you to “create your own website.”

We would recommend WordPress.

We’re writing an article on a guide to creating your own WordPress website, but you’ll have to come back in the near future for that one.

We believe it’s only fair that that we ask…

Please, hire a professional to create your website.

There’s a lot to consider when designing your website.

Content Writing

You have your website designed, but you’re not finished yet.

You have sorted your logo, colour scheme, the site structure.

Now you have to think about what you’re going to say.

When writing content, always remember to speak to your customer’s needs.

There are some considerations our team would suggest:

‘You’ orientation – speak to your customer’s needs, nobody cares about your company
Features vs benefits – think about the features of your service and how that benefits your customers lives
Localised pages – think about appearing in local search engines

And then once you’re done, you can optimise your search engine presence, which includes both your content and technical aspects of your website.

Mobile Optimisation

For the last several years, mobile consumption has risen over 80% year-after-year.

As we move in 2021, this is no longer ‘the future.’

It’s happening now.

It’s reasonable to assume that 90% of your website traffic will be viewed on a mobile device.

And over 50% of customers say that will not do business with a company that doesn’t have a website that is mobile optimised.

That should tell you one thing.

You should design your website with mobile in mind.

A mobile-first website prioritises the mobile device, rather than the desktop version of your website.

You shouldn’t optimise your website for mobiles.

You should build your website for mobiles.