10 to-do items for your startup
Before approaching your STARTUP online website, here are a list of items you will want to have ready. While learning the WordPress system, you will want to have this content handy and ready to be implemented during our sessions together.
1. Research
Review websites you like, dislike and that are competitive to your product. Start by sketching with pencil on paper, laying out the components you want to use on your site.
2. Content
In order to create good content, you will need to have a business plan, goals and targets so you understand how best to approach your customers. For example my goal is to provide training to individuals and small start-up projects.
Be sure to have written, proofed and spell checked your content. Preparing this in a text document ahead of time ensures you’re prepared for building your website. It is important to pay attention to the volume of content you have and how you would like it to be laid out.
3. Site Map
Building a visual site map will benefit you in understanding how to group material. This is built by using boxes and lines to chart content structure of your website. It’s very helpful for visualizing your website before you begin building it.
4. Navigation
Break your content down into group headings which will be become your navigation or pages on your website. You may want to organize some of your content into sub structures or sub menus. Again refer to your visual site map that you created for structure clarity. Some common navigation examples are;
Home / Services / About / Info / Contact / Blog
5. Media
Select your images for your website. Select a key header image you wish to use as your banner, image should be landscape in nature. Web photos need to be sized at 72 dpi and are usually no larger than 1000 pixels wide, however WordPress.com offers a built-in resizing option making it easy to reduce and change image size on a page. Link to video tutorial on how to prepare images for the web.
Please be sure to use your own photos or that you have permission to use it. It is unlawful to steal images from the internet for your website and you could face legal charges if you should do so.
Prepare any videos you want to showcase and upload those to either YouTube or Vimeo. Later you will be able to embed your videos into your website.
6. Disclaimer
This is an area outlining copyright and ownership stipulations. For example one line indicating a © with a year and a name is placed at the footer of a website. This is a legal document that protects you. It is recommended to do some additional reading on this subject.
7. Domain
Please select 5 domains that you wish to use for your website. The best domains are words that end with a .com but others are also commonly used. Try to avoid using dashes in your domain addresses as that complicates and confuses your viewers although sometimes I understand we are left with few choices and have to compromise. You will want to spend some time carefully selecting a domain that is right for you. We will approach the registration together during the building process. We will begin with your top selections and hope for availability, but this is why it is good to have back up plans. Use Geek Tools to determine if your domains are available.
8. Design
With approaching a WordPress.com website, you will have to make use of one of their free or paid templates. That said, most of the construction work is done for you as the container has been designed and coded by professionals, phew thanks to them for that! However, you will still need to consider how you want your site to look and feel. Understanding your goals is important for this. Designing visuals and selecting graphics that illustrate and capture your audience is key. Think about how you want your site to feel. What images create that feeling? WordPress.com provides a paid upgrade service which allows you to modify your css style (colours and placements) sheet and change the fonts.
9. Search Engine Optimization
Write clear descriptions of your website and services. You can enter revised short paragraphs and place those into the excerpt box on any post.
10. Social Media
One of the best reasons to use WordPress.com is that it IS a powerful social media tool unto itself. The platform is a host to millions of users alone. WordPress.com has a built-in sharing system that makes it easy to install sharing tools so your viewers can share your website across their social media platforms. People can share your website across WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Stumble Upon, Google+, Digg, Reddit as well as allow you to print and email pages.
Here are the key social media platforms that WordPress.com integrates; Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin. From there you can easily configure your settings to reach other social media networks. WordPress.com’s system speaks to your social media platforms and broadcasts your blog updates for you, reducing your work load while expanding your visibility online. It’s a win – win!
Along with building your WordPress.com platform, you will also be inspired to create accounts for Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. Should you wish not to launch all 3, I will suggest that you pick at least one so that you can improve visibility and response to your site.
