In this episode Ed and Brendan talk about the process for building a website and the several steps involved.

If you’re considering getting online or redeveloping your website this is one to listen to.

Listen to this week’s show and learn:

* the common trap many businesses fall into with the “website redesign loop”

* the discrete 6 step process for building a more effective website

Highlights, Notes and Action Items from this episode:

1. Define the Website Purpose & Target Market

* who is your target market?

* what the is specific purpose your website serves?

* what is the main problem you’re solving for the customer?

* what’s the offer?

* what is the action you want the visitor to take

* what is your USP or unique selling proposition

2. Content writing & sitemap creation

* in most cases using a professional copywriter is better than DIY-ing it as you’re often too close to the business

* the step is often ignored in favour of focussing on design -> bad idea

3. Imagery and photography

* the era of stock photography is over

* make sure people are in your photos

* photos are about feeling, stock photos feel fake, is that how you want people to feel when they visit your website

* stock photos should only be used for “things”, Ed uses dollarphotoclub.com for stock photos

* some excellent examples of different types of website photography: http://www.photographyproject.com.au/portfolio/website-photography/

4. Web design

* this is the step that usually gets the most focus but is actually optional – a predesigned template can be used instead of a custom design where budgets are tight

* a web designer does design and not sales and marketing, don’t be confused about that

5. Web development

* a website developer is a programmer who takes design files created by a designer and turns that into a fully functioning website

6. Online Marketing

* if coming from an existing website, three core SEO considerations you need to make to ensure your traffic and rankings don’t drop:

* redirect old pages to the relevant page on the new site

* make sure your Google Analytics is transferred across to the new site so you can properly track performance

* make sure page titles and meta descriptions are set correctly

Listening options:

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.