Building a great website takes passion. It also takes great copy, good
design and a lot of time. These are all luxury items, so it would be
wise to optimize the effort. We've put together a series of articles on
this very topic. During the next five weeks, we'll tell you the whole
story.
Edicy is a startup, a small and energetic company. Most of our customers
are of the same size. Edicy itself is firstly meant for small
companies. That's why we'll talk about small business websites. Not that
NGO's, government agencies and enterprises live on another planet. It's
just that this advice here is not for those to swallow without chewing.The themes and dates of the posts will be:
- April 20th: Introduction
- April 23rd: Gathering team
- April 30th: Writing content
- May 7th: Creating design
- July 14th: Building functionality
- July 21st: Increasing traffic
In a nutshell, creating a great website is as follows:
- Build your site quickly, the details don't have to be perfect. In this timely world, great is enough. Just get it done.
- Decide alone, don't gather a big team to distract your clear thinking. People never agree with each other anyways. Recruit only the best to give you good advice and do not share decision making. Democracy sucks in web creation.
- Content is king. Think like your customers- write simply and shortly. Be visual. A picture is worth a thousand words.
- Promote.
Get it out in the wild once it's ready. A great product tends to spread
quickly, but you still have to work hard. Without promotion no one
knows how great it is. And there will always be loads of other great
sites yearning for attention.
- Congratulations, your job is done. Or... is it? Sad news is that it will never be. Once your attention runs down, your site dies alone. A truly great sites needs updating, developing and caring, forever. This is actually the fun part and there's no need to avoid it.
Comments: 4
"In a nutshell" -- there is no word about design?
Yes, I wanted to keep it short and neutral. No need for those everlasting arguments about design taste and content management system brands :) You can get a great design from a design stock or ask a designer to create it uniquely for you. In any case, do it quickly, don't try to be perfect and decide everything without a committee.
Good stuff. I like the words: "takes great copy, good design and a lot of time. These are all luxury items, so it would be wise to optimize the effort". Mandatory for a great page though. Thanks for the series, it will be very useful to pass over to folks with online-wishes ;)
My best whishes Tõnu for your new big "creation" and proud to forming a part of this amazing project.