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Build your Perfect Website
from Alice Jennings
Getting Started Guide
1
Congratulations! You are just a few weeks away from having a website you are excited to
share and which you will be able to proudly say you built yourself.
This means that as your business grows and develops you will be able to grow the website
to meet the changing needs of your business and enable you to always keep your message
fresh and aligned with your offers.
Before we get started with the technical side of building your website it is worth spending a
little time doing some planning. Please don’t skip this section of the programme as it makes
a huge difference to the end result.
Domain name and web hosting
You will need a domain name (www.mywebsitename.com) and web hosting (somewhere to
actually build your website) to get your site live.
You can purchase both from anywhere you choose but I recommend Siteground for hosting
and if you purchase their basic plan you will also get the domain name for free. Siteground
have excellent support and pretty fast servers.
My domain name is registered with____________________________________________
My host is _________________________________________________________________
My logon details for the hosting account are:
Username __________________________________________________________________
Password ___________________________________________________________________
2
About your business
Business Name: ________________________________________________________________________
Business Mission Statement (what is your mission?) ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Business Tag line: Condense your Mission statement down to a maximum of 8-10 words.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Example of this include
Dog walker - ‘happy dogs, happy owners’
Fertility expert – Helping you complete your family
Words that describe your business
On the next page there are lots of words that could be used to describe a business. Take a
look through and circle all those that you feel relate to your business and cross out all those
that do not describe your business.
Then get a highlighter and choose the top 5 that you would use to describe your business
and work. Then list them in priority order here:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
3
Adventurous
Agreeable
Ambitious
Artistic
Athletic
Bold
Brave
Bright
Business-like
Calm
Capable
Caring
Casual
Charming
Cheerful
Chic
Classic
Clever
Collaborative
Colourful
Confident
Conservative
Contemporary
Convenient
Cool
Collaborative
Cooperative
Creative
Credible
Cultured
Cutting Edge
Daring
Decisive
Delicate
Delightful
Detailed
Determined
Different
Diligent
Discreet
Dynamic
Eccentric
Educational
Efficient
Elegant
Enchanting
Encouraging
Enduring
Energetic
Entertaining
Enthusiastic
Ethereal
Excellent
Exciting
Exuberant
Fabulous
Familiar
Fancy
Fantastic
Fashionable
Fearless
Formal
Frank
Fresh
Friendly
Fun
Functional
Funny
Futuristic
Generous
Gentle
Glamorous
Graceful
Happy
Harmonious
Helpful
Hilarious
Hip
Impartial
Impressive
Industrious
Informal
Innovative
Inspiring
Inviting
Jolly
Joyous
Kind
Knowledgeable
Likable
Lively
Lovely
Lucky
Lush
Mature
Mischievous
Modern
Natural
No-nonsense
Nostalgic
Novel
Obedient
One-of-a-kind
Organic
Playful
Plucky
Powerful
Predictable
Productive
Professional
Protective
Proud
Quaint
Quiet
Quirky
Radiant
Rebellious
Receptive
Reflective
Relaxing
Reliable
Responsible
Retro
Revolutionary
Rural
Rustic
Secure
Sensitive
Serious
Simple
Sincere
Sleek
Smart
Soothing
Sophisticated
Stable
Steadfast
Stimulating
Stylish
Talented
Tasteful
Thoughtful
Thrifty
Trendsetting
Tough
Trustworthy
Unbiased
Uncomplicated
Unconventional
Unique
Urban
Versatile
Vintage
Warm
Whimsical
Witty
Wise
Youthful
4
About your Client Client Avatar or Ideal Client:
(Think about who your perfect client is. Describe them in as much detail as you can, give
them a name and imagine all aspects of their lives)
Name: ____________________________________________________________________
Age: ______________________________________________________________________
Location: __________________________________________________________________
Relationship status:__________________________________________________________
Family? ___________________________________________________________________
What car do they drive? ______________________________________________________
What job do they have? ______________________________________________________
What books/ films / magazines do they like? _____________________________________
What are their hobbies? _____________________________________________________
5
Brand Colours
Choosing colours that represent your brand and give potential customers the right feeling is
so important. Watch the bonus webinar on Design and think about your perfect colours.
Write down the #hex code and the RGB code so you have them to hand.
Colour 1. #___________________________ R _____G _____ B_______
Colour 2. #___________________________ R _____G _____ B_______
Colour 3. #___________________________ R _____G _____ B_______
Images Images are key to the look and feel of your website. It is essential to have permission to use
the images that you put onto your site as you are liable for hefty fines (£1000s) if you use
them without.
There are 3 main types of image that you can use:
- Your own images. This usually involves employing a photographer to take some
shots of you, your products and scenes that represent your business. If you are
planning to have photos taken then consider the following:
o Ensure you have landscape images taken most web pages require landscape
(and you can always crop these down to portrait but it doesn’t work the
other way around).
o Think about the background. If you want to overlay text a very mottled
background can make it hard to read text.
o Request the images at both print and web quality to make it easier to use
them on your site.
- Stock images. These are images that have been taken by photographers or created
by illustrators with the view to sell them to people requiring specific pictures. They
fill a purpose but can look a bit posed and unnatural.
- Artistic photography or illustrations. The internet has made image sharing easier and
with it there are large numbers of very talented photographers sharing images they
have created. These are often stunning and can really transform a site.
Where to look for images There are thousands of stock photography sites out there. Some are paid for, some free and
some are free but with restrictions such as crediting the photographer. Make sure you know
what the restrictions are for the images you are using. NOTE: Royalty free doesn’t mean that
the picture is free… it just means you don’t have to pay a royalty every time you use it!
6
Free images
The following sites have some amazing free photos. Make sure you check the terms of the
site or image before you use them
www.unsplash.com – Beautiful photography. Worth bookmarking for a browse if you feel a
bit blue as it is so gorgeous.
www.picjumbo.com – Much more stock photography than the previous sites but a really
useful site
www.pixabaycom – more great stock photos and even some videos
Some more that are worth a look:
www.deathtothestockphoto.com
www.pexels.com
www.stocksnap.com
www.newoldstock.com
www.splitshire.com
Paid for photos
Sometimes you just need to fork out some cash for the perfect photo. If so try some of
these sites:
www.fotalia.com
www.adobestock.com
www.shutterstock.com
www.dreamstime.com
www.123rf.com
7
Site Structure Thinking about the pages that you might have on your site before you start will enable you
to build your site so your customers can find what they want quickly.
Your site will start off with the following pages:
• Home
• About
• News/Blog
• Services
• Contact
• Testimonials
Think about what other pages you might want to have, including sub pages such as detailed
services under the main page. Draw your pages out below:
Home
About Blog Services
Service1
Service 2
Contact Testimonials
8
Audit Before your site goes live it is important to check that you have each page performing all the
tasks it is meant to do.
Use the following pages before, during and after your build to check that you have
completed all the tasks and that there are no errors.
There is a blank page at the end for you to use for any extra pages you have created.
9
Page Planner – HOMEPAGE
What is the key message of this page? ___________________________________________
What action do you want people to take as a result of visiting this page?
___________________________________________________________________________
Can you easily see how to get in touch on this page? Yes No
What is your key word/s? ______________________________________________________
Check list
Proof read!
Links all working?
Forms work (if applicable)
Images are named appropriately
Pages work on
o Desktop
o Tablet
o Mobile
10
Page Planner – ABOUT
What is the key message of this page? ___________________________________________
What action do you want people to take as a result of visiting this page?
___________________________________________________________________________
Can you easily see how to get in touch on this page? Yes No
What is your key word/s? ______________________________________________________
Check list
Proof read!
Links all working?
Forms work (if applicable)
Images are named appropriately
Pages work on
o Desktop
o Tablet
o Mobile
11
Page Planner – NEWS /BLOG
What is the key message of this page? ___________________________________________
What action do you want people to take as a result of visiting this page?
___________________________________________________________________________
Can you easily see how to get in touch on this page? Yes No
What is your key word/s? ______________________________________________________
Check list
Proof read!
Links all working?
Forms work (if applicable)
Images are named appropriately
Pages work on
o Desktop
o Tablet
o Mobile
12
Page Planner – SERVICES
What is the key message of this page? ___________________________________________
What action do you want people to take as a result of visiting this page?
___________________________________________________________________________
Can you easily see how to get in touch on this page? Yes No
What is your key word/s? ______________________________________________________
Check list
Proof read!
Links all working?
Forms work (if applicable)
Images are named appropriately
Pages work on
o Desktop
o Tablet
o Mobile
13
Page Planner – CONTACT
What is the key message of this page? ___________________________________________
What action do you want people to take as a result of visiting this page?
___________________________________________________________________________
Can you easily see how to get in touch on this page? Yes No
What is your key word/s? ______________________________________________________
Check list
Proof read!
Links all working?
Forms work (if applicable)
Images are named appropriately
Pages work on
o Desktop
o Tablet
o Mobile
14
Page Planner – TESTIMONIALS
What is the key message of this page? ___________________________________________
What action do you want people to take as a result of visiting this page?
___________________________________________________________________________
Can you easily see how to get in touch on this page? Yes No
What is your key word/s? ______________________________________________________
Check list
Proof read!
Links all working?
Forms work (if applicable)
Images are named appropriately
Pages work on
o Desktop
o Tablet
o Mobile
15
Page Planner – ___________________________________________________
What is the key message of this page? ___________________________________________
What action do you want people to take as a result of visiting this page?
___________________________________________________________________________
Can you easily see how to get in touch on this page? Yes No
What is your key word/s? ______________________________________________________
Check list
Proof read!
Links all working?
Forms work (if applicable)
Images are named appropriately
Pages work on
o Desktop
o Tablet
o Mobile
