{"id":128,"date":"2010-06-17T16:07:27","date_gmt":"2010-06-17T23:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/?p=128"},"modified":"2021-11-04T00:25:56","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T07:25:56","slug":"custom-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/custom-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Custom Website"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’re thinking about your first website<\/strong> and you feel overwhelmed?<\/p>\n

Why a custom website<\/strong><\/a>?<\/p>\n

Templates are fine if you know enough to fully fill out all the boxes which means you know how to build a website to some extent. There is much behind the scenes, unless you typically view source code you are unaware of and the importance.<\/p>\n

Putting your business into a professional’s hand is so important.<\/p>\n

There was a time when launching a website was easy enough and you could make mistakes and still do fine through Google. Times are so different. Thus it is no longer a hobby.<\/p>\n

So where to begin preparing to create your website?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the visual design find 3 websites you like – even one element: the color or the layout. This gives your designer an idea of what you envision.<\/p>\n

If you have a logo that can dictate the color scheme.<\/p>\n

Your website wants to make a large footprint. One client has 237 pages – which would be a huge task to begin your first website. Five pages is so small it is difficult to maximize your content to feed search engines. Ten pages allows for a well rounded entry level.<\/p>\n

Begin to think about your pages: Home,\u00a0 Contact Us, About Us are standard pages, also Testimonials. Your Home page and About Us pages often share content. If you have a mission statement for your business that is valuable.<\/p>\n

Think about organizations you belong to (Chamber of Commerce) licensing, BBB.<\/p>\n

Photos and more photos. People are visual and truly a picture is worth a thousand words. Digital photos are the best, but old snapshots can be edited, color improved and are quite usable, so don’t shy away if they represent your product or service.<\/p>\n

Whether you use a Testimonials page or not – collect these. They can be sprinkled on your other pages if your budget won’t afford a stand alone Testimonials page. Ask your valued customers for a couple lines, or find old cards of thanks for your service.\u00a0 Read an earlier blog of mine:
\nhttp:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/?p=119<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, you’re ready to call your designer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ready to create your first website and not happy? Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,67,68],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-smallbusinesswebsite","tag-custom-website","tag-first-website","tag-template-website"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendasimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}