Essentials to Launch Any Website
Thinking about launching a website? Impressive. You may have a plan about how to build it. The process may sound complex but it is not that difficult. With the advent of new AI today, you can make the website all by yourself without learning any coding stuff, and therefore the process is not that much complicated as you are thinking it to be. Sounds interesting? Awesome.
You must be thinking about what are the essentials before launching a website. Let’s read the article and see what are those prerequisites to create your website.
Choose A Domain Name
A domain name is the online identification of your brand. Any of your customers will search for your brand by typing your domain name. Hence, selecting the right domain name is the most crucial part before making any website.
Sometimes, this effortless task becomes overly complicated because this process may involve long research on finding a perfect name, checking the availability, and much more. While choosing any domain name, the following factors must be considered properly:
Domain Name Must Be Unique
Reserve domain name that is distinct and unique. Moreover, one domain name which is currently being used by one business, can’t be used by another. You can only use the existing domain name after doing certain modifications to it.
For example, you searched for alex.com but found that it’s already taken. If you still want to go for that domain, modify it by adding something to the domain. For instance, you can try, alexonlinestore.com. You can also try looking for the other extensions as only .com is taken. Rest will be still available such as .org, .uk, .co, .in, and many more.
It Should Be Easily Spelled and Memorized
Select an easy domain name if you want your users to pronounce it easily and memorize it for a longer time. In order to make it happen, avoid adopting fancy names which are difficult to even spell. Moreover, you can’t expect others to remember it. Just to look different from your competitors, you will make a huge mistake by choosing difficult domain names.
Stop Being Creative by Using Hyphens or Numbers
You may add extra symbols, numbers, or random alphabets to the domain name which is already taken. But, know one thing this is the poorest strategy one makes while setting up a domain name.
The major disadvantage is that it worsens the user experience. Typing a URL that consists of several numbers, alphabets and symbols will leave the users frustrated and they may leave the site before exploring anything. Even, you yourself will find it tough to spell out your domain name properly. Therefore, keep your URL as simple as possible.
Select a Flexible Domain Name
Pick a domain name that doesn’t restrict you from expanding your business in the future. Didn’t get it? Not an issue, let me explain it more clearly.
At times, you choose a domain name that specifically describes your core business only. Let’s say you run an online book store and hence your current domain name is booksonline.com. But what if you decide to sell clothes and accessories in the future due to their increasing demand. You will find it difficult to diversify your business under the domain,”booksonline.com”.
Hence, pick a domain name which allows you to expand your business according to the future requirements.
Go Through the History of a Domain Name
It’s highly probable that the available domain name may have been used already. Because its renewal may not have been done by the owner and thus, its right is restricted over the last few years. Such domain names are deserted due to forgotten renewals. These domains are open to being sold on the regular website from the legal resisters.
However, you have to see its history thoroughly. They may be a redirected anchor from other web pages. There are high chances that you will receive huge traffic. On the contrary, such domain names may have been blacklisted also by Google or other search engines. In this case, it’s better to buy a fresh domain name.
Host Your Site
Just like any living organism has its specific habitat, likewise, a web-hosting platform is the virtual habitat for any website. Hence, the web hosting technology is a storage space on a server where many websites are placed.
Types of Web Hosting Services
The web hosting providers offer different types of hosting plans to meet the respective website needs. The below explained are the most common types:
Shared Hosting
The shared hosting is perfect to be used by the small website owners, new bloggers, and the newly start-ups. It is the most economical plan because the website owner allows other multiple websites to share resources on the same server.
VPS Hosting
Virtual Private Server hosting is again a type of shared hosting plan but it can handle a comparatively larger volume of traffic as compared to shared hosting. Partly, you get a private server which is easily manageable from the control panel available in the hosting. It’s perfect to be used by famous bloggers, online stores and medium sized businesses.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated server hosting is the most advanced hosting plan. Herein, a complete server is given to you which will dedicatedly work for your website only. The advanced features such as premium tools for server management, access to download your own operating system and any software are enjoyed to the fullest.
To manage dedicated hosting, technical skills are necessary as handling it is complex.This is perfect to be used by famous website owners and largely established ecommerce stores.
What are the Criteria?
Through web hosting only, anyone is able to see any active website online. Without hosting, there is no accessibility to the internet and hence, websites can’t be reached out to by users. To understand what factors to consider before buying any hosting, look through the following points:
Uptime
You may have come across several URLs which take a plenty of time to load. Irrespective of the clicks you make on the link, the website doesn’t open. Search engines also jot down this factor and value such sites lesser as compared to others who offer better quality.
To overcome this major gitch, make sure that your web hosting service provides you with the best quality in terms of availability. This is also measured in the percentage out of 100%. The closer the quality is to 100%, the better will be its uptime.
Data Safety
It’s never easy to trust anyone to host your complete website where your enriched professional content is being ranked at the top. Besides, your website has your personal and financial information.
Check whether the provider ensures the safety of your data with constant backups. Furthermore, check if your users are safe while they are surfing your website. Any slight threat to users can spoil your online reputation, hence, look for data security as the first priority.
Storage Space
Analyze the purpose of your website and take it as a foundation, decide how much storage you want for the files you will add. A small or a start-up business will generally buy cheaper plans as they don’t need extra space, on the contrary, developed companies have to focus on premium plans as they need large spaces so that they don’t get out of memory.
Monthly Volume of Traffic
Perhaps you may be unaware that some web hosting services have a limit on monthly traffic. As soon as such a limit is completed in a month, the service will add extra charges for the additional users accessing the website. Either it will add the extra charges or restrict your website’s visibility on the SERP. This makes your website go down and all of your performance goes in vain.
Today, there is huge competition among the different web hosting providers. To stand out in the market and build substantial goodwill, marketers will try to provide you with some additional benefits in the respective packages to beat the competition.
You are advised to stay alert and inspect every plan thoroughly. Measure the pros and cons and finally choose one that exactly matches your requirements.
Choose a CMS
A content management system (CMS) is an online software that helps you build, design, modify and control any website. CMS works perfectly for those who are tech-savvy and don’t know the language of coding. You don’t have to hire any technical personnel to build a website because your CMS will do that task all on its own within a few minutes.
Choose a CMS that best fulfills all of your website’s needs and accomplishes your objectives. Before you launch your website, go through the following criteria on the basis of which you should buy any CMS:
Easy Usage
Have you ever imagined that almost every individual starting from content creators to senior website developers works on the backend of any website? Yes, it’s a long process behind content marketing. Hence, you should pick one CMS whose functionalities are easy to be used by all. It will make the working smooth and quick.
Advanced Extensions and Plug-Ins
Every website owner wants a CMS that consists of a variety of customization options, extensions and plugins. Such options help you to easily modify your website and thus enhance its appearance. Your visitors enjoy the enriched experience on your site which ensures the high growth of your website on search engines. Hence, look at such advanced plugins, whether they are available.
Security
Security of your website is the topmost concern you should have in today’s digital world. The platform you select must ensure the safety of your online data and your visitors also. To verify whether your CMS is providing you security or not, check the following:
What’s the process to backup your site? Check thoroughly if you manually have to do it.
How to update software?
How to download security extensions?
How to get an SSL certificate?
Price
Different CMS platforms have varied pricing depending upon the functionality, space, and security they provide. You have to choose accordingly which one should be selected depending upon your current requirements. One with multifunctionality, extra space and security add-ons comes at an expensive price as compared to an economical one which has limited features.
These were some significant criteria for choosing any CMS. You can refer to any of them and weigh them according to your current needs. Choose one CMS which can help raise your business to apex.
List of The Best CMS Systems
WordPress
CMS Hub
Shopify
Drupal
Joomia
Optimizely
PrestaShop
Storyblok
TYPO3
Crownpeak
Contentful
Concrete5
Contentstack
