Nowadays, almost every business is shifting their focus online. Since a typical American spends 24 hours a week online, a great portion of the marketing, buying, and selling happens online. That’s the exact reason why companies invest in building websites and a solid digital marketing strategy. In the end, it’s all about obtaining good search engine optimization (SEO) results that will “serve” the product or service to the online users faster and more effectively.
Regardless of whether you’re one of those business owners who want to open a website, or you’re simply going to start online to reach the global market, congratulations for being part of the 1.7 billion active websites.
Now all you have to do is choose the right platform to build your website, the right name (domain name) for your site and a reliable hosting provider. These three things are essential if you want your website to be successful, so you should put a lot of thought into them.
In this article, we’ll help you find out more about these 3 pillars that make a good website and elaborate on the ways in which you can choose the right platform, domain name, and web hosting provider.
Choosing the Right Platform for Your Website
To build your website, you can either choose to hire developers to build it from scratch, or involve yourself in the process and try out some website building platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Squarespace, Shopify, Wix, Launchrock, Virtuemart, etc.
All these platforms have one thing in common: they are designed for the purpose of creating a DIY website. Website owners who don’t have any experience in building websites can actually benefit from using these—for the most part, they are intuitive and beginner-friendly. However, some sites require more tech knowledge, while others are great for beginners.
Did you know that 26% of website owners have chosen WordPress over any other platform and website builder? So, you might ask yourself: what’s so special about WordPress?
Well, the answer is the following: WordPress is beginner-friendly, flexible, and free, and it has many plugins and tons of online tutorials that can help you with the setup and development of your new site. It’s also SEO-friendly.
However, lately, it seems that other website building platforms are getting popular as well. For instance, WordPress lacks 24/7 tech support, which is available on Squarespace. Another great thing about platforms like Squarespace is that they do all the updates for you. Meanwhile, your WordPress website will most likely crash if you don’t update a plugin.
Therefore, think twice before choosing a platform. The one you end up choosing should suit your needs, expectations, and preferences.
Selecting the Perfect Domain Name
Choosing the right domain name for your website is difficult and will require a lot of brainstorming. That’s why we suggest you make a survey and see what your closest friends, colleagues or employees think would be a suitable domain name for your site. The domain name you choose should have the following qualities:
- It should be short
- It should be easy to pronounce and easy to type
- You should go with the .com extension
- You shouldn’t use hyphens, numbers or other symbols
- You should use keywords if you can
- It should be one or two words at the most
After you pick out the right domain name for your website, check whether it’s available for purchase. For that purpose, you can use the free tool from Domain Name Sanity, where you can check if the domain name is free. If it isn’t, the tool will give you suggestions based on your first pick.
In the end, you can just buy the domain name you’ve chosen on the same platform. And, yeah, it’s that easy.
Picking the Right Web Hosting Provider for the Future of Your Site
Your web hosting provider is as important as the domain name and the platform you choose for building your website. If you pick a quality and reliable web hosting provider, you’ll most probably have a successful website, and you won’t have to struggle with issues such as unexpected downtimes or security breaches.
For example, the web hosting provider is responsible for the security, speed, and SEO ranking of your site. It doesn’t just offer you a space on the server, but its real value is in the features it offers. That’s the reason why you shouldn’t try to save money on your web hosting provider—on the contrary, invest in it!
Conclusion
To wrap up, the website building platform, your domain name, and the web hosting company you use are the three essential things that will either help your website be successful or cause it to fail. So, the main takeaway? Put your time and effort into research, and don’t let these three become an afterthought!
