You want to create a website for your blogs, affiliate promotions, SEO campaign or new small business e-commerce platform. To achieve true success, however, you can’t just dip your toes into the water; you’re going to have to dive in and start treading fast, and this means understanding the key components that go into functioning digital branding platforms.
It’s hard for your outreach practices to achieve their full potential when you’re stuck with a digital footprint that doesn’t work as intended, so it’s vital that your website runs smoothly. After fulfilling clients’ content needs for years, we’ve become experts at conquering the pain points that hold digital content strategies back.
With countless website builders and creative workflows to choose from, creating a website is well within the realm of possibility for anyone nowadays. Here’s how the process works.
Website Creation: What Goes Into Building a Home for Your Brand?
In the dark ages of the web’s past, creating digital web presences was mostly the domain of tech companies. Fast forward to the bright lights and flashy outreach of the modern era, and not having a website can spell instant doom for any company regardless of its field.
Creating a website and running a business go hand in hand. In addition to helping you represent your firm and its mission, going through this process gives you a more concrete idea of how you serve customers and relate to your business partners. If you’re feeling less than confident about your grasp of web code and layout principles, however, the prospect of building a digital footprint can seem overwhelming. This crash course should change your perspective.
An Intro to Webpage Anatomy
Webpages are plaintext files that use code to tell your browser how to display components like text, media, submission forms and links. Although each site varies according to its creator’s wishes, most include a few key elements:
HTML files that use tags to describe where elements should go, how to play media files, which parts of text should form links and other layout concepts.
CSS stylesheet files that define how to format the elements created by the HTML tags by setting features such as colors, fonts, margins, positions and layout shapes.
JavaScript files that let the page run custom programs in the background, such as when a website displays a popup, sends user location data back to a server or responds to user interactions like submitting a form.
Using nothing more than these three file types, it’s possible to create a fully functioning niche website that serves a variety of business or marketing needs. For instance, you can stick to HTML and CSS to create a static “About Us” page with limited behavior or build an interactive e-commerce shopping cart by using JavaScript. You have lots of leeway to tweak things and make them your own.
Breaking Down the HTML
HTML pages are the universal framework of contemporary websites. Each constructs an empty outline that you can fill with whatever kind of content you want.
You define different parts of your HTML scaffolding by using elements known as tags. These constructs use the greater and less than symbols, < and >, to set certain text apart. Most sites include these standard elements:
The DOCTYPE, defined by the tag, tells the browser what kind of HTML code it should expect.
The root, defined by thetag, includes all of the HTML code that the browser uses to display your page.
The head, ortag, includes meta tags that define how the browser should interpret international characters, what title to display at the top of the window and where to look for CSS and JavaScript files.
The body, ortag, is where you add in your user-viewable content, such as headers, images and paragraphs.
Website Creation Methods
Feeling unenthusiastic about cracking open a text editor and creating your own site from scratch? You wouldn’t be the first business owner with better ways to spend your time.
Fortunately, there are plenty of alternatives. For instance, you can use editors to define layouts by placing elements while the software creates the code for you. Since many of these tools are visual, you don’t have to spend hours typing or struggle with steep learning curves.
The Value of Good Organization
Many of the web’s most popular posters and netizens focus on creating software tools that help them build multiple sites instead of working on the individual sites themselves. By adapting existing layout engines and content management systems, or CMSs, they can work on things like themed appearances and written content separately.
Separating your workflows makes it possible to maintain consistent branding and still give key stakeholders the flexibility to fill in the blanks as they go. With studies confirming the power of keeping your brand on target, being able to retain top-down control without having to micromanage is a big bonus for growing companies.
Topical Awareness and Your Niche Website
No matter whether you’re coding a website by hand or using a fancy layout tool, you should always pay attention to the small details. Your webpage may include lots of different information, but it should have an overall theme that continues across individual pages to present people with an experience that’s easy to follow.
Cultivating an awareness of the topics and themes that you want your website to share or explore is critical to your success. From the very beginning, you need to evaluate the kinds of stories you want to tell and what you’ll need to do to share them, such as
Think About Written Content
Imagine that your cardboard box factory wants to sell more of its products online. If there are hundreds of offerings in your catalog, then how will you keep things organized and concise without restricting visitors’ options?
Considering the types of content that you need is a big help. For instance, if you know that each of your cardboard product descriptions will be around 200 words, then you can plan how to space things out so that you don’t overwhelm readers. If your blogs need to accommodate call-to-action text, such as “Subscribe, like and share this article,” or links to other pages on your website, then you can start to create individual page layouts that mesh smoothly with the overall aesthetic while leaving room for common elements.
Diversify your Content!
Diversifying your written content early makes it easier to build an interesting, dynamic website. Even if you’re not quite ready to go live yet, planning ahead is far easier than trying to backtrack and integrate content into an incompatible website after the fact. When your content and site complement each other, they help keep people invested in the experience that you’re trying to cultivate.
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WordPress and Other Sites: The Prefabbed Option
Want to establish a presence online? Creating your own website from the ground up isn’t always feasible, especially when you’re busy trying to run a company. The same goes for updating and maintaining your web presence. You may simply lack sufficient time to rewrite the CSS style sheets that define the look of all your pages or create new layout code every time you want to publish new blog articles.
Services like WordPress work to make your life a bit easier. These platforms offer basic software tools that anyone can use to flesh out an existing website or build one anew. Here’s how they operate and what they might mean for your site management plans.
What Are CMSs?
When you don’t want to get too technical, a content management system, or CMS, could be your ace in the hole. These tools let you upload content without worrying about the code behind it. This ability may contribute to their popularity among business owners and others who want to get online. Out of the top 1 million Alexa-ranked websites, almost 400,000 use some form of CMS.
CMSs take many forms. From popular software, such as WordPress, Joomla, TYPO3 and Drupal, to more specialized options, including MediaWiki and Ghost, different platforms may offer features like
Do your Research on CMSs
When choosing a CMS, remember that no single option works for all needs. For instance, many marketers love WordPress yet still rely on added extensions to gain the full functionality that they desire from the platform. A company that specializes in coding its own business software tools might have the in-house expertise to modify its CMS or create custom themes from scratch. A firm that lacks such talent may have to pay for a more fully featured version of the same software to accomplish similar projects.
Pick a CMS that matches your needs and supports your existing workflow processes. With so many distinct options available and the ability to create your own extensions if need be, there’s no reason to settle for anything less than website management perfection.
Why Do People Use CMSs?
Not all digital presences need CMS tools to make their web content stand out. For instance, if you’re working with a website copywriter to engage audiences with interesting Tumblr posts, then a full-fledged CMS might be overkill. On the other hand, content management installations could come in handy when you’re trying to manage multiple social media presences at the same time.
Who really needs CMS tools? With so many customization options, there’s no universal rule, but some netizens that might benefit include
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Website Content Creation: Outlining a Well-Defined Online Footprint
Your digital presence determines how people relate to your company, but what defines your digital presence? It’s not just a matter of trying to maintain the same header images from page to page or remembering to insert your logo in a few choice locations.
Smart, comprehensive branding is about creating content that gives your website consistent meaning. Here’s what you ought to know about how your digital content should work.
Understanding Web Content
Content is critical to the digital experience. From the blurbs and taglines that promote your corporate culture to the descriptions that give your videos and other media more punch, content tells a vital story. It informs people about how to engage with your brand presence and get a sense of reward in the process. By sharing what you’re all about in a transparent manner, content makes your brand as accessible as possible.
Critical Content Distinctions
Your content exists as a part of your coded webpage. It’s significantly different from background elements, such as HTML tags, CSS style definitions and JavaScript functions, however.
Unlike hidden page code, content is fully visible to your site’s readers and visitors. As the main focus of your webpages, it satisfies those who want to find out more about your enterprise and become consumers.
Which kinds of content should you focus on when you’re creating a web presence? No matter why you’re trying to make your digital mark, you need to remember that good content is multifunctional.
Consider a page banner that includes a playable video. Such an element does more than just grab attention; it also provides a handy starting point for user interaction and reveals a purposeful portrayal of your corporate culture. Perhaps your latest behind-the-scenes blog includes an image that explains a sophisticated aspect of your process in an infographic. This could both inject life into a dry subject and break up the nearby text for improved readability.
Choosing a Focal Point
Although content should serve many purposes, good web writing also stays grounded. Pick one element or type of content to provide the central theme for each page. For instance, you might design a blog around a process blueprint or factory fabrication video.
By building on a focal point that helps you define the primary theme, you can give your writing a more definite direction. Sure, your readers might not get to see the HTML backbone that you use to create each post or page. As you review what you’ve created, however, you’ll likely notice that your focused content encourages easy reading and fits into the narrative well.
Working With Website Content Services
Web content services let you forge partnerships with authors who can help you bulk up your site’s framework. Unique content gets rewarded with better SEO rankings and the improved page view statistics that come with them. Working with independent professional writers may help you gain traction by setting yourself apart stylistically.
Effective web content services also make it easier to link your content purchasing strategy to your existing web presence machinery. For instance, Textbroker lets you
Find a Website Copywrite that Works for You!
Not every author is going to be the right fit for your content needs. Whether this comes down to their knowledge of your industry or a simple difference of stylistic opinion, it can be frustrating to feel like you’re at cross-purposes with a seemingly promising writer.
As with any working relationship, developing a professional partnership often takes time and patience. Starting off with access to a broader pool of options may, however, make it easier to cut through the noise early and connect with a suitable writer.
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Advertising: Are you Reaching your Audience?
You’ve built a slick website that would make your business mentors proud. Whether you’re trying to impress consumer audiences or take your biggest competitors by surprise as you seize the industry throne, however, you’re not going far without a solid advertising strategy.
On the internet, you’re in a constant race for attention, and good content convinces people that you’re worth it. Advertising is what lets them know that you’re in the running in the first place. Here’s why marketing is the natural complement to your digital content and how to make the most of it.
Digital Advertising Defined
The phrase “advertising” may conjure up images of suit-wearing businesspeople dreaming up campaigns in smoke-filled boardrooms, but things are different in the Information Age. Today, digital marketing takes place at the grassroots level. Companies are becoming masters of their branding strategies. They’re also taking charge of which marketing channels, such as social media platforms and affiliate sites, they use to make headway.
Why Should You Advertise?
Modern digital advertising delivers unprecedented access to data. Anyone can learn critical facts like who’s viewing their site, which advertising partner sent each visitor, how long users stay reading and whether people make purchases after browsing around. This proliferation of information gives digital businesses the leeway to engage in highly targeted campaigns that address the needs of real users like never before.
Modern digital advertising delivers unprecedented access to data. Anyone can learn critical facts like who’s viewing their site, which advertising partner sent each visitor, how long users stay reading and whether people make purchases after browsing around. This proliferation of information gives digital businesses the leeway to engage in highly targeted campaigns that address the needs of real users like never before.
How Should You Advertise?
Advertising strategies can and should differ according to your needs and the restrictions of the advertising tools that you use. For instance, Facebook, Google and other companies let anyone with the right amount of money post short blurb ads, but the promo text that marketers provide must adhere to specific character-count limitations.
Not all advertising efforts offer the same amount of market traction either. A Tweet or hashtag that goes viral on Twitter might perform significantly better or worse than if you had shared the same content on another site. It’s vital to understand each platform and use your limited words wisely, especially if you want to send traffic back to your main site.
Data comes in handy when you’re trying to pick a good marketing strategy. Finding a website copywriter is a great way to incite and learn from genuine user feedback.
Copywriters can help you build test ads and custom campaigns that produce unique variations on a theme. For instance, you can create blogs that share different DIY tips or periodic press releases that increase positive buzz to sustain public interest in your business partnerships. If you’re building a niche website, then working with a professional ad copywriter is a must because you’ll need to speak authoritatively about your specialized technology or products.
Advertising isn’t just for businesses that sell directly to consumers. From jet-setting social media fashionistas and artistic bloggers to creative agencies and Fortune 500 enterprises, outreach helps companies and individuals broadcast their ideas and values more efficiently. By giving them louder voices, it leads to enhanced profitability and higher visibility in a sea of attention-grabbing competitors. Can you truly afford to let your message get lost in the background noise?
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