3 Tips that Helped Me to Kickstart My Website
- maybellelek
- Jul 12, 2020
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 26, 2020
Creating a website need not be an uphill challenge.
With all that has been going on locally and internationally, I have reached my threshold. This left me exhausted mentally and emotionally. To combat all that noise, I wanted to include a note of positivity and community rapport, so I began circulating this post as shown. To my pleasant surprise, I had 9 people sharing their websites in the comments sections, as well as some offline compliments.
At the same time, I have received many questions on a range of topics, such as:
“What platform did you use to create your website?”
“How did you decide on the layout?”
“Do you pay for a subscription?”
“Have you tried other website platforms?”
Building a website from scratch might seem like a daunting challenge, especially when you have little experiencing in Web/Graphic Design. Let me share 3 tips that helped me to kickstart my website:
(Before I begin, let me preface this by saying that all of these advice and tips are based upon my own personal experiences. By no means am I an expert in this field, I’m just another someone who is willing to share her experience based on her trials and errors. If you require more professional or specific advice, seek out someone with the adequate knowledge and skill set to help you. I will also be throwing out some Digital Marketing terminology to help contextualise a little bit. Don’t worry if you don’t know DM.)
1. Goal-Setting: Create Your Blueprint
Whenever we embark on something, there will always be an end(_____). It is always helpful to set some goals on the purpose of your website. Is it a portfolio? Is it for sales? Is it for your business? Granted that the journey will waiver, and the end goal might change along the way. But having a clear frame on the end-purpose of your website will be useful to help you stay anchored.
Goal-Setting goes beyond that: it is about having a blueprint. What do you want the visitors to see? What content will they be looking at? You need to be able to map out your visitor’s journey as they navigate through your website. This is crucial for your visitors to have a pleasant user experience (UX).
When I first began creating my website, I saw it as play. I wanted a single platform where I could showcase the photos from amazing photographers I’ve had the pleasure to work with. Additionally, I needed an avenue where I could practice my writings. Hence a website made sense for me.
As someone with little to no experience in web design, this felt like a fresh project for me to uptake. I would learn from trial and error, and slowly tweak it to make it more user-friendly. Recently, I learnt that I need to make my website more accessible, such as including alt. text for photos and videos. You’ll never know who might visit your website.
I used wix.com to create my website. Here’s why I decided to stick with Wix:
Wide Range: 500+ free designer-made website templates that would leave you spoilt for choice.
User-friendly & Intuitive: I had little experience in web design, so the templates were helpful for me in choosing a structure that I liked the most. P.S. When choosing a website template, choose the one that you will edit the least. This will create a structural hierarchy, which can save you a lot of headache.
Reliable Host for your Website: I have subscribed to Wix for 1+ years now, and it is reliable and trustworthy. I have not experienced any issues with it (jinx).
Mobile-Optimised Website: I cannot stress how important this is. Most of your visitors will be more likely viewing your website from their mobile devices than their laptops. One of the advantages that Wix has over its competitors is that it will automatically adjust the ‘mobile’ user interface (UI) to make it mobile-friendly.
For further information on Wix, click here to find a review written by FinancesOnline. In short, Wix has the appropriate website building software to satisfy my needs in creating a simple website. If you decide to pay a subscription (which costs to approx. $10/month), you are entitled to several benefits including free email marketing campaigns and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to help boost your website search. Moving along…
It is entirely up to you if you feel that purchasing a domain is necessary for you. For me, I got a yearly subscription where I wanted to see how far I can push this. Additionally, having my name as a domain for a professional, online portfolio was a valid reason for me to have a subscription. But again, each case is different. Do some research and see what is best for you.
2. Keep Your Branding Consistent
When I talk about branding in this context, I am not referring to promoting yourself as a service of product (unless you are offering a service-based product). I am referring to the aesthetics: colour palette, font, images, videos.
This was a concept that I was introduced to much later that I wish I would have known earlier (but better late than never). Yet, as I was designing my website, little did I know that there was already a branding formed. I just was not aware of it, until recently. For example:
I was using the font ‘Avenir Light’ throughout my website.
I was using the black & white colour palette, along with earthy colour tones such as browns, warm oranges and even reds.
My colour theme for my website is predominately black & white, with a splash of colour to make the words/images stand out even more.
Be consistent with the colours and aesthetics that you decide for your website. This creates visual flow as well as imprint of your branding in your visitor’s minds when they first see your website.
Additionally, the aesthetics should match with your content, personality or business branding. You don’t need to be familiar with Colour Theory to be able to do this, simply go with the colours that you feel the most drawn towards.
Allow yourself to create intuitively. I think that was the most helpful and consistent element as I was drawing up my website. Although there were major revamps done that consumed quite a bit of time, I worked with creativity and intuition. If you feel the need to research by looking at other websites for inspiration, that is highly recommended!
Pro-Tip: Getting feedback from friends & people who know you is one of the most helpful tips I am able to offer you when it comes to finding out your branding. Ask around, get insights and you will be able to slowly paint a picture (no pun intended) when it comes to the colour scheme for your website.
On top of receiving feedback, don’t be afraid to share your progress with your friends once in a while. Ask for feedback, what they liked aesthetically and what they feel could be improved. Getting real-time feedback is really useful to help you stay updated and relevant along the way.
Other ways you can find inspiration:
Pinterest
Other websites of a similar nature to yours (read through till the end as I share some websites that might be of interest to you)
Creating a mood board: this helps to create consistency with all the visual elements so you can see how it looks like in one glance.
After poking around for feedback, I realised that I could enhance my homepage by adding that splash of colour to my initials. It is subtle, but still visually appealing. Drawing back to my blueprint - the purpose of my website is to be an up-to-date portfolio. Not only that, I see it as a platform to develop my writings, to share my works, collaborations and classes. So there are multiple reasons for this website to exist.
So, the next question I get is: how long did you spend on creating your website?
Off the top of my head, it took me approx. 3-6 months to begin that initial phase of choosing a template, playing around with the structural hierarchy, uploading good quality photos & videos, to create the content writing elements… After those 3-6 months, my website became 'live' (which means it can be searched on any search engine - Google, Firefox, Bing etc.)
The work does not end there though, it is imperative that you update your website frequently. Would you visit a website that is not up-to-date with its current content and projects? No, you wouldn’t. Don’t let your website fall into that same trap.
Pro-Tip: Update frequently. A learning point that stood out to me as I was attending a Digital Marketing Course was that websites with the most frequent updates will appear first on the search engine. This is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Dormant websites will less likely be spotlighted by Google (or whichever browser you're using). Therefore through, 'optimisation' of your website, the search engines will detect it and bring your website up to one of its first few searches.
And to my final tip in relation to content…
3. Make Your Content Relevant and Engaging
This is a point that I am still improving on, and it comes with pre-planning (back to tip #1). By this, I mean web content: textural, aural or visual element posted on a website. This includes images, texts, email messages, e-services etc. The key note to remember here is that web content is the key behind traffic generation to websites. The aesthetics just makes up 10% of what your visitors would want. People come for the content, so therefore your content must be relevant and engaging.
Relevant: What is relevant to you? What is relevant to your branding? Write/Share your strengths and what you are ‘qualified’ to share. What I realise that people mistake (including myself) about blogs is that we tend to share a broad spectrum of an individual’s thoughts and opinions. That is what social media is for. A website’s purpose is much more specific. Write topics within your field of expertise or something that you have experience in. That makes your opinion more credible as someone who is active and experienced.
Engaging: Let’s be honest, no one wants to read something boring. So, be excited with what you have to share. It doesn’t need to be revolutionary, Rome was not built in a single day. Write about topics that you are interested in. That interest will translate into your writing, and your visitors will be able to sense that from their screens. Imagine having a conversation with someone and they’re droning on and on…. How do you want to avoid this scenario from happening? How do you want to be engaging? That’s for you to find out and explore!
Whenever I get a wave of inspiration to write about a particular topic, I will always begin by typing on a blank page. Through free writing, I let the words come and edit from there. A post (just like this one) would take me between 5-7 days depending on my daily schedule.
These are my top 3 tips to consider and plan before you begin designing your website. Designing is the fun part, and you can be as creative as you wish! Good luck, and I hope this article has helped you. To end on a sweeter note, here are the websites of some amazing and highly interesting people whom have kindly shared on my Facebook post. May this inspire you to kickstart your journey to designing your own website!
(click on their names and their websites will surface)
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