A company website is an essential marketing tool. If you don’t have a site, you want one built and up and running as quickly as possible.
So, how long should that take? We’d all like to push a button and have a site materialize, but the truth is that a custom website takes time to build.
Depending on your needs and how simple or complicated the website is, the total build time will vary. A well-designed site might take 45-60 days to complete. As with all marketing projects, good communication between you and the developer is the key to making things run smoothly.
Let’s look at the process.
The Initial Meeting
When you meet with your web developer, you’ll want to discuss the following:
Goals — What’s the purpose of this website? Who is it for?
Scope — What features and pages does the site require?
Your web developer will ask a lot of questions, and the more information you can supply, the better. You want the developer to understand your needs so that they have everything they need to start working on your site.
Web Design and Content Creation
This is where the design process begins.
This can be broken down into two basic elements: content and visuals.
Content engages readers and can get them to act. That’s the goal. Compelling content must be housed in a pleasing, easy-to-navigate design. Dull or wordy content or a displeasing design are to be avoided at all costs. Your developer has a lot of experience building sites, so they can help make your site as dynamic and inviting as possible.
Compelling content also helps a site’s visibility for search engines. Creating and improving content to rank higher in search engines is called SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and people want to see images on your site, so having interesting and engaging visuals will make your pages easier to digest and more engaging. What’s more, a good visual design successfully communicates your site’s appeal.
Testing
Once the site is built, it needs to go through extensive testing, making sure all links work, and that the site loads properly on all browsers.
Launch
The big day! Once everything is thoroughly tested, you’re ready to launch your site. There might still be a few hiccups, but those can easily be fixed.
Google Analytics
When your site is up, your developer can help set up Google Analytics to track traffic and visitors to your site. Google Analytics also provides:
- Event tracking hits
- Pageview hits (or screen tracking in apps)
- Social plug-in/interaction hits
- E-commerce transaction hits
- E-commerce transaction item hits
- User-defined hits (custom variables)
The whole process from start to finish may take a month or two, but that’s time well spent for a professionally designed business website.
Farmhouse Creative takes the time to create websites right. Please contact us with your marketing needs.