7 Things You Need To Know About Your Brand New Website

You’ve just got your new website and you’re ready to go, but you have no idea what “ready to go” means. In this article, we’re going to tackle that. Whether you’re a newbie or whether you’re hoping to get a refresher, websites are here to stay, so make sure you nail the fundamentals. Here are seven things you need to know about your brand new website.

1. Make Website Security Your Highest Priority

You might find it boring or even unnecessary at the beginning of your journey, but there’s nothing more important than securing your website from attackers, especially if you end up on the first few pages of Google. The internet is full of hungry people ready to try their best either to scam you or to make your life a little bit harder. You have to avoid that.

Website security starts with your web server. Whether you have a hosting package with GoDaddy, HostGator, or any other major company, you have to make sure that security on the server is set up correctly. You can do this by directly calling the customer service and they’ll help you figure out what’s going on in the backend. Just make sure you do this!

Security on the internet is the single most important factor. All other efforts will be negated if your website gets hacked or your server goes down for weeks. You need a reliable configuration that can keep your website up — forever! That’s the point of the internet, so you should absolutely invest in making both your web server and your website as secure as possible.

2. Your Website’s Performance Matters

Choosing the right hosting package is a little like choosing a car. You can go for the cheaper option, and that’ll work just fine, but you can’t expect it to do very well on a race track. On the internet, performance matters — A LOT. You need to choose a hosting package that’s fast enough for your needs, or you might lose out to webmasters who have faster sites.

What does losing out actually mean, though? Google ranks pages based on a number of factors, and page/site performance is one of those. It’s actually one of the most important signals for rankings, and this really demonstrates how the internet is moving towards super fast, super lightweight load times. You have to match Google’s expectations if you want to rank high on specific topics or keywords.

So, you probably already have a hosting package, and for the most part, you’re going to be fine with whatever you ended up choosing. However, if you choose a shared hosting package, you can only really host one website at a time, otherwise, you risk seriously slowing down the entire system. Do not overload shared hosting packages with excess files!

3. Don’t Skimp On Website Design Features

The web is getting prettier. This isn’t just a guess based on observed experiences — it’s a matter of fact. Therefore, people increasingly expect websites to be highly attractive, not just from an aesthetic perspective, but from a User Experience (UX) point of view. You need your website to be branded and designed the right way. Without good design, your website is bland both visually and functionally to end-users.

Thankfully, beautiful themes (pre-made designs) are cheaper than ever. You don’t need to invest in a freelance designer to get everything done. You can simply install your favorite theme on WordPress, and get a WP designer/developer to fully integrate it for you. You can also do it yourself if you’re willing to dig deep into the settings and menus.

If you want a really good-looking custom design, you also might want to know something about HTML and CSS. Those two front-end languages allow you to make small custom tweaks to the User Interface (UI) to make it unique. If you want to retain your users and make sure that they continue using your website, you simply cannot skimp on design features. They’re crucial!

4. Reduce “Friction” As Much As Possible

Reducing friction… What does that mean in relation to a website? In this case, it has to do with UX. You want to make sure that your user is led by hand throughout their navigation of your site. In actuality, reducing friction means letting the user do everything on their own without them even noticing how hard it actually is to get things done on the internet.

Today, we’re all used to “intuitive” UI that guides us through various buttons on a screen, but it wasn’t always like that (and it still isn’t for some professional software). However, since websites and apps are built to be used by people of all different technical levels, it’s important to make them as “easy” to use as possible. This is what we mean by reducing friction: letting the user do things themselves.

This might sound obvious, but it’s really not. When you first build your website, you have to take into consideration what formatting assets are going to go into your blog posts, service pages, pricing, contact, and so on. It’s better to list all the different features that you want on your website beforehand, so that you know exactly where to place them as you go.

5. Know Underlying Website Technologies

You don’t have to fully understand web technologies in order to run a website, but you have to at least know that they’re there so that you can ask for help if required. Knowing your underlying website technologies will help you better assess the structure of your website, and will allow you to plan accordingly. Here are some common technologies in website world:

1. SSL | Needed to implement a secure, encrypted layer on top of your website
2. PHP | Needed to connect your database to your website (forms, buttons, etc.)
3. JavaScript | A programming language that does most of the interactive and animated work
4. HTML & CSS | HTML represents the “skeleton” (structure) and text content of your website. CSS represents the styles, colors, fonts, and much more as it relates to giving HTML a nicer appearance
5. Cache | Hardware or software used to store your data efficiently (and temporarily)
6. DNS | Allows you to point your domain to your web server and create subdomains

… and much more. We won’t list the web’s entire technology stack here, but it’s important that you at least get an idea of what these technologies do, and why they exist in the first place. You don’t have to be a programmer or a computer-savvy person in order to run a website, but you have to understand where eventual problems might arise in order to ask for professional help.

6. 10x Your Digital Marketing Efforts

Nine out of ten people create their first website because they want to figure out how they can make money with it. Eight out of these nine aren’t able to figure it out. That’s because they haven’t studied how digital marketing works. If you want to achieve success with your website, you have to 10x your digital marketing efforts either by studying the field in-depth or by practicing it on an ongoing basis.

Digital marketing follows a set of specific rules from which you simply cannot stray away. They also need to be implemented in a certain order. There are many concepts to marketing, but what you should be actually looking for is content marketing — at least in the beginning. You want your website to rank on Google, and the quickest way to do that is to create great content.

Content marketing allows you to see the first results within months, and make no mistake, you’re going to see results if you follow the rules of great online content. Websites are all about information and the value that’s rooted in data. So, if you’re able to figure out how you can offer valuable resources in exchange for a piece of user data, you’re golden.

7. Fully Understand Your Website Analytics

This is not something that you should casually approach. Instead, it’s something that you should invest a lot of time trying to understand. Your website analytics tell you basically everything you need to know about your online audience. If you can’t properly assess the importance of certain analytics and objectives, you’re going to miss out on a lot of opportunities down the line.

We always suggest taking a Google Analytics course (this one is free!). Why? Because analytics was made for humans, not for computer scientists. It’s not about doing math every day, and it’s not always about looking at spreadsheets. Instead, looking at analytics is more about understanding people and less about actual data. That’s why it’s so important for your website.

When you get people onto your website, you want to know what they’re looking for. Analytics allows you not only to do that, but they also make sure you target the needs of these people, making it easy for them to choose you over competitors. If you can do that, you have an advantage both in terms of business and online reputability.

Build A Strategy For Your Website Today

If you’ve learned something valuable in this article, it’s that all websites need a strategy. It’s like building a skyscraper; when you don’t lay the foundations the right way, it’ll topple. You definitely do not want that, so build a strategy for your website today, starting with security. As we mentioned, it is the single most important aspect of your website, so start there!

Too complicated? Let us handle it. We at DarwinApps analyze, design, and implement websites that can 10x your business growth. If you want a trusted partner that can lay the foundations of your website, we’re ready to help you. Our fantastic customer support team can lead you towards the right solution — fast. Learn more about what we do here.