Tips to build a CMS website
In the last 1.5 years of the pandemic, websites have emerged as the most important real estate for personal blogs or businesses. Websites helps connect with a larger audience, expand one’s online presence and build brands. It offers a platform for sharing viewpoints, connecting with consumers, showcasing skillsets, and creating opportunities for work and personal projects.
If you are looking to create your own website, this blog will help turn your idea into a reality Let’s go through a step-by-step process to create a sound website without coding. You will learn about selecting a memorable business and domain name, CMS, and web hosting platform.
Pick a business name
Selecting a business name will also help you create your website domain name. A good domain name is short and simple with appropriate extensions (.com/ .net/ .co). The .com domain is more popular, and easy to remember than the others.
Keeping a business name that’s overt and consistent with the products or services you are offering is always a reliable option. However, you can also opt for abstract names (eg. Google, Vivo) or implied (FedEx, IBM) options.
Try not to keep a name that’s too similar to your competition. A name that is easy to spell and pronounce will be easy to remember. You may want to avoid hyphens and punctuations in a business name as they are difficult to memorise.
Once you decide on your business name, head over to portals such as Go Daddy, BIGROCK, Hostgator, etc. to buy an available name.
Purchase a secure website hosting
Website hosting is a service that makes your website accessible on the internet. Once you connect your domain name to the hosting account, people can type your domain name and visit your website. For CMS users, you must carefully select a secure website host. You might like to follow these simple tips when choosing a website hosting service:
- Choose a hosting platform that is compatible with the technology used for your website creation (Linux or Windows) hosting. Do not go for the lowest price of service as there might be hidden costs or compromise on quality.
- Look for a dedicated server in place of a shared server to ensure uncompromising security.
- Ensure that the hosting provider strictly complies with the security laws and does not share your confidential data.
- The hosting provider must be able to offer quick customer support especially through phone. It can take too long to interact via emails when your website has a glitch.
Bluehost and GoDaddy are some of the popular hosting options that offer domain privacy and protection of your data.
If your domain name and hosting space are from different providers, you will have to do domain mapping. In this, you will add the nameserver details given by your hosting provider to the nameserver panel linked to the domain name. Once done, anyone who enters your website domain name will be able to see the data stored on the hosting space server.
Once you have chosen the domain and hosting, login to your hosting panel. Now select a CMS of your choice (e.g Wordpress) and install it on the server. Few hosting servers provide one step installation of CMS so you can follow that too.
Building your CMS website
After installing the CMS, you can now make desired changes to your website. To customise, you must develop content for:
Home page: What do you want visitors to see on your website? Is it information about the company, services, or what’s trending in your niche?
About us page: Tell your visitors about yourself and how you will help them.
Products/Service page: List your offerings
Contact information: Mention how people can connect with you.
Login to your CMS account and add these pages from the dashboard. Select a theme carefully to showcase your website content. The colour schemes and other visual factors must connect with your business. For example, a red and white theme might be a good colour scheme for a food business, but a pastel or green option would be better for a yoga centre.
You may also want to create a logo for the website. For creating a custom logo, you can use free online tools such as Canva, Squarespace, Fiverr, etc.
Now, you have a simple website ready. You can customize the look and feel of the pages by installing a page builder, adding new themes to the CMS, installing plugins, adding widgets. Try to explore and play with the options to create a presence that appeals to you.
Create an engaging user interface
Add graphics to create a visually appealing website. Here are a few guidelines to follow for an engaging UI:
- Create an intuitive UI through which users can navigate easily.
- The audience must find relevant information easily.
- Incorporate a call to action (CTA) to trigger a response from users. Your CTA can change depending on the use of your website. Some of the popular CTAs are Read More, Schedule a Demo, Subscribe, Buy Now, Download, Swipe up. Websites with a clear CTA that provoke enthusiasm perform better than the ones without one.
Once you have a website ready you can add a payment gateway, if required.
Optimise your website for better ranking
You can’t skip this step if you want to draw online traffic. Adding relevant keywords to your website content, creating high-quality backlinks, and internal linking are a good way to start off.
Maintain a blog page, if relevant for you
Blogs or news topics related to your business are quite helpful in keeping your audience engaged. Something as simple as how to use a product you recently launched on your website could work well for you. You may also publish other topics that are relevant to your business.
This is the simplest way to create a website on a beginner level. It is easier said than done, but you will learn with practice.
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