There are many companies offering website design and web development services. Some even offer packages where they combine a few services offered under a special price. Some services are necessary but some are not.
Most customers have no idea which is necessary and which is not. In this article we go over the list of services which are essential to not only have a nice website build up, but to also ensure that it can be found when customers are searching for it.
There may be many reasons why one decides to have a website but the key one of it all is to reach out to a new market and get new customers. This is only possible if there is proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) done, both during the web design process (on page) and external promotion (off page).
First let’s take a look at the essential services for designing a website that works.
- Website Design
- Web Hosting
- Maintenance
- SEO
Website Design
This is the process of engaging a Web Design Company to design your website. They will gather all the information about your company and separate them into different pages on your website. A website is usually structured into the following pages:
- Home Page
- About Us
- Products / Services
- Contact Us
A good Web Design Company will design each page with good SEO structure and rules in mind; That is optimizing the each page with a keyword and structuring it correctly with the right Headers and “Meta Tags”. A company who is only into design may not do all this. They will only design a beautiful website, collect payment and you are on your own.
Web Hosting
After design, we need a place to store all your web pages. It needs to be stored on a server with special softwares and high speed connection. Good hosting companies invest in good hardware and have excellent support when needed.
There are many cheap hosts out there and it is very tempting to sign up for one. Most of these are shared hosts having their resources shared by a number of websites. The downside for this is a very slow website with frequent breakdowns.
Most of the cheaper web hosts also do not offer proper support. If your site goes down for any reason, you are on your own. Without support, it is nearly impossible for a non technical person to troubleshoot or fix any problems. So you end up paying for hosting until the contract ends with no service. A good hosting company will always work with you and fix all problems. Good support is the key difference.
Secure Web Hosting
This is particularly important for E-Commerce Websites – Sites that have login pages or collect credit card information from customers. Google is known to flag such websites that are not secure. Most good web hosts include secure hosting services.
Website Updates
While not essential, it is important to update the site regularly. Whenever a website is updated, the date is recorded. Search engines love recently and regularly updated websites. These sites tend to rank higher in search results. To them, a non updated site is old and the information is out dated. A website that has not been updated in a while will slowly slip down in the Search Engine Ranking Position (SERPS) as time goes by.
It is a lot easier to get a new site to rank well than an old site which has slipped down the ranks.
Web Promotion (SEO)
If the purpose of your website is just for internal use like your staff or club members only and you are not really interested in getting new contacts, then this is not essential. But if you want to be found when people search for either your company name or its products and services, this service is important.
This starts during the web page design process. Not all web design companies do this, but a good web design company with experience in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), will incorporate good SEO practices into the design of each web page. This is called On-Page-SEO.
Next would be Off-Page-SEO with a range of different services
As you can see, in order to have a website, you would need the services of a good web design company and a good web hosting company. But if you stop here, all you have is a website which looks good but no one but only your family and friends know about it.
If you want a website that can being in more business and attract more clients, it must appear when potential customers search for it in search engines. For this, you need to put in a bit more work and keep your website relevant with frequent updates and engage the services of a Good SEO Company
An expensive shortcut to good SEO would be to bid for keywords in either Google or Bing.
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