Things People Don’t Think About When Building a Website

Though many people don’t know it when they start, building a new website is a large undertaking. That is why we recommend hiring a team of professionals for your web design project and later on for your website’s hosting and maintenance.

At Compete Now, we have been building quality websites for organizations in the Boston, MA area and throughout the country for over 10 years. If you are interested in learning more about our website building services, click here or call 617-539-6528 to get started.

Today we’ll discuss some of the things that people don’t take into consideration before deciding to build a website. 

Things People Don’t Think About When Building a Website

Quality Photography 

If you are going to have a new upgraded website, it should include fresh photos. We recommend hiring a photographer or opting for suitable stock images to ensure that the images on your site are high quality and current. Though this is relevant for any industry, this is an essential part of building a great ecommerce website, since you will want your products to look modern and appealing.
Make sure that you own the licenses to any stock photos that you use by purchasing the pictures. This will ensure that you will avoid complaints and fines. Check out our blog on whether or not you can use google images on your website to learn more. 

Content Structure

Many of our clients want to over-consolidate pages, making it so that there is too little information on the website or making it difficult for viewers to find what they need. Remember that you are more of an expert on your organization than anyone outside of your organization. At the beginning of each project, we help our clients design sitemaps that cover all important topics, with specific pages dedicated to the most important topics. We also encourage our clients to include plenty of helpful information on these pages, keeping in mind that many viewers will be coming to the website with little previous knowledge on the organization or its services.

Besides educating potential clients, having sufficient information on your website in an organized structure is also beneficial for your website’s SEO. Google will crawl each page of your website. Based on the content, heading structure, SEO title, meta description and alt text on each page, Google will gain an understanding of individual pages and then decide how they should rank over time. Having separate pages for important topics containing helpful and robust information will help your website to show up higher in organic Google Search results. 

301 Redirects

As Moz, an SEO authority, explains “A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect that passes full link equity (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect.” You must set up 301 redirects on your new website to ensure that there are not any broken pages, which are bad for the user experience and for your website’s SEO ranking. 

Basic On-Site SEO 

Though there will always be opportunities to improve your website’s ongoing SEO, every new website should have basic on-site SEO covered. This means including alt text on all images, having a proper heading structure, and ensuring that every page has an SEO title and meta description. Interested in improving your website’s SEO? Take a look at our on page SEO tips. 

Mobile Optimization 

Many people fail to thoroughly test their new website on mobile before launching it. It is essential to test out the appearance of each page on multiple screen sizes, include different mobile and tablet views to make sure that the website is accessible and easy to use for everyone. 

Testing on Different Browsers 

In addition to testing a new website on different devices, it is also important to test it out in different browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and Internet Explorer. Keeping these small, pre-launch details in mind will ensure that everything goes smoothly when you launch. 

Installing Google Analytics

You will want to begin tracking your website’s analytics as soon as it is launched. This will immediately begin building its history and give you plenty of insightful data to look back on as time goes on. This will help you to understand how users are interacting with your new website and ultimately to figure out if your website is achieving its conversion goals. 

Setting up Google My Business

There are many benefits of Google My Business that you will not want to miss out on! Getting it set up right away will attract clients to your business and show Google the validity of your business. 

Keeping Accessibility in Mind 

Accessibility is becoming more and more important, and in many areas of business it is now a must in order to avoid legal issues. Making a website accessible involves having an accessibility statement on the website, including appropriate alt text for every image, using a theme that supports accessibility and more. To learn more, check out our webinar on what you need to make your website ADA compliant! 

Optimizing for Page Speed

Your website should be built to have optimal page speed. This will keep it running quickly and help its SEO ranking. An experienced website company will know how to build a website that is optimized for page speed and that will be easy to maintain. 

Clear Calls to Action

Your website should include clear calls to action that work towards achieving your website’s goals. What do you want people to do after browsing your website? Do you want people to contact you for more information, book an estimate, or request a quote? These are just some main common calls to action that organizations highlight on their websites. You can include different calls to action on different pages and then a more general call to action in the website’s main navigation. The example below is of the volunteer page on Community Teamwork, a non-profit website. The volunteer page call to action is to contact someone to begin volunteering, but there are also the main calls to action in the main navigation to contact Community Teamwork or to Donate:

Considering Building a New Website? 

Our team is here to ensure that every important step is covered and that your website becomes one of your strongest tools in achieving your objectives. Click here or call 617-539-6528 to get started!