I am in the process of setting up my own website to advertise my new business. It has been a very daunting procedure. There’s so much to think about and plan. Web technologies are very complex and baffling to individuals like me! I wasn’t sure how you turned your text into a live web page and how you optimised each page for search engines. Luckily there are lots of companies that are designed to help small businesses like me and even multi-national businesses manage and develop their website content. Once you have established how you will put the text on to the page you then need to think about if the content you want to publish is fresh, relevant and interesting to internet browsers. The content has to be structured to perform well in search engines.
My website content should be an evolving and ever-changing process. During this process I learnt about the difference between SEO and SEM. SEO basically means search engine optimisation. This involves increasing your website’s visibility on the major search engines such as Yahoo and Google. SEM means search engine marketing.
The consultant from the content management systems company provided me with a face to face meeting and also offered continued telephone support during the process of setting up my site. They also said they could refer me to writers who would provide the content for websites, virtual and printed publications. However, as my site is advertising a writing service I thought I should write the content myself! They provided third party tools that would help my site’s visibility in search engines and I was also advised how I could apply any competitive insights to my website.
I thought I would outline the process to guide anyone else through. The first step was discussing my requirements for the project and working out a cost. Then mock-ups were creating during the next stage which was the web design development and testing. Cross-browser compatibility testing is also then completed. I gave my feedback on the mock-ups. One of the designs was really garish and totally not my style so I informed the designer who altered the colours and toned it down. This can be a long process depending on how fussy you are- it took me about 2 weeks! The next stage is the web site development- the exciting bit when the web site is finally installed and set up via a secure development server. Web design is installed and configured. The text content and images supplied by me were included. The CMS Company helped me with the menu navigation sections and categories with the contact forum. Search friendly URLs for the web site were configured and set up. The whole site was then tested. I gave my customer review before the web site was finally released. Once the review was complete they gave me a date to release the site into the ether! I was given some documents which helped me to manage and run my web site. The final stage was my website going live and available for visitors to view.