Ah, at last, we’ve arrived at the final stages of getting your website ready to be launched and released into the big wide world of the web.
After securing your Domain Name, setting up your Website Hosting and creating the basic framework of your website, the next and final step in the 5 steps to setting up a website is to add your content.
Before we start with this, you need to know that there are 2 types of content that you add to your website
- Standard Pages
- Relationship Building Content
On this page, I want to share an overview of both types and how you can get started with creating your website content,
Standard Website Pages
These website pages hold content about you and your business that does not change too often. They also contain information to let your visitor know they’re in the right place and what action they need to take.
Things like;
- Details of products or services
- Your contact details
- Opening hours
- Rates or price lists
- Your location and directions, if you operate a bricks and mortar set up
So, you may have a top level menu bar with the following pages listed:
- Home Page
- Services or Main Product Pages
- Resources or User Guides
- Blog or Articles
- About
- Contact (telephone, email, address, directions)
You don’t need to limit yourself to this list on your website, your static pages and the content they will contain will depend on the type of business you are running and who your customers are.
For example, if you need your customers to visit your store or premises, then and your address and directions on how to get there are going to be important. If you are selling physical items online, then besides creating product pages, you may need to have clear shipping details listed or a returns policy page.
Custom Pages – Relationship Building Content
When it comes to really making your website work for you as marketing tool, you need to create customer focused content, by providing information to help them move closer to making a sales transaction with you.
As the name suggests, this type of content helps to build a relationship between you and your ideal customer. And the name of the game here is to offer value and actionable help and advice.
For example; if you are running a book-keeping business, you would publish articles or blog posts on how to budget for tax time or what type of paperwork a business is required to keep, if these topics were of a recurring pain in the butt for your customers.
If you sell physical products,like home gym equipment, you would list how to guides or videos on the best way to fit your home gym up and how to maintain it as well as how to use it to get the best results.
The main point here is to listen to your customers frustrations and match them with the solutions to their problems that your product or services provide.
There are many ways to deliver this type of content and on this site I share some of the ways I do it. Generally your customer focused content will be delivered using the following methods;
- User guides
- Blog posts and newsletters
- Links to videos and tutorials
- Industry insights or how-to guides
The starting point for your content will usually be your static pages as the customer focused stuff will require a little more planning.
So to get you started on how to add your first piece of content, I want to show you how easy it is to add a page to your site.
How To Add Pages To Your Website
Adding pages to your WordPress website is very, very easy. Here’s a very basic overview of how you go about it…
These steps are just to show you how to create a test page, so there’s no instructions here on how to add content to make it fully operational page.
From the Dashboard area, select Pages.
Then select Add New
You need to add a Page Title and some sample text.
This is what you’ll see once the page is live on the internet.
After you’ve added your Page Title and sample text, click on the Publish button to create the page.
If you want to work on a draft version, then click on the Save Draft link near the Publish button.
You’ll be asked to confirm that you want to publish your page.
Don’t worry if you find out later you didn’t want this published, as you can reset the page to Draft mode, or simply delete the page.
Your page is now live.
From here, you can view the page.
Remember, this page is now live on the internet, for all the world to see.
If you are creating a test page, be sure to use the Switch to draft link at the top of the page to un-publish it.
This is what the test page looks like when looking at it as if you were a website visitor.
You can see the Page Title and sample text I added in the edit view.
Congratulations, you’ve now added a page to your website.
Clearly you have a little more work to do get your website to be in a presentable state. However, by now you will understand the 5 steps to creating a website. So if you are creating your own site, you know how to get started with WordpPress. Remember, there are other website builders, but I only work with WordPress so I cannot comment on other platforms.
If you are getting outside help from a web guy or gal, then I hope you know what is involved in the initial set up stages and you’ll be feeling confident that you can at least “speak some of their language”.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep on reminding you that your website will and should always be a work in progress. There will always be some area that needs either updating or a new piece of content that needs to be added. You may even decide for a re-brand further down the track.
You’ll find heaps of resources and guides that go into more detail both on this site and around the web.
Don’t forget you can read up on Website Content in my free E-Guide (if you’ve not grabbed your copy already).
CLICK HERE for the guide.