Ideas are great. Taking action, and bringing them to life is a totally different story. There are a raft of amazing ideas for new websites on a daily basis; the major problem being most of them never get round to being executed. Some even never get as far as setting up a website hosting service, while others do significantly better in so far as getting the website up and live, but fall victim to one of many factors and sooner or later the website is forsaken. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you however, as this very practice is now common, with even the most focused of individuals sometimes being susceptible to such tragic events, given so much time, effort and investment has been expended.

If you are interested in avoiding the circumstances that may lead to your website becoming forsaken, Newpath WEB have covered ten tips below that will assist you in following through with your ideas.

Develop a comprehensive, yet flexible website strategy plan: Planning is essential when executing an idea. A website or online strategy plan, should be as detailed as possible and include all elements that will be needed before your website is launched and begins to gain traction. This plan should be comprehensive, yet flexible allowing  necessary modification when the need arises.

Ensure the plan fits the budget: Once you’ve completed the comprehensive plan, you’ll have a much better chance of figuring out how much your plan is going to cost you. If the final cost is more than what you are prepared to part with, don’t shelve the idea and forget about it, instead take a look at the plan critically and see what can be removed and how you can reduce costs. It helps to engage experts to assist with the planning stage.

Don’t “over cook” it: Too many people have ideas that tend to incorporate everything great they can think of at the time. This is usually a recipe for disaster. Managing a website with multiple features and functions can be time consuming and requires ongoing dedication. If you want to start a news website, focus on one or a few niches, keep your website design simple and make sure you have enough content to keep it ticking over. Avoid the complex stuff in the early days (unless you have the resources to handle it) like adding video features or twelve sub-categories of news items, “over cooking” it too soon is one quick way down the road to having a forsaken website, as you’ll quickly find out that you can’t keep up. Once you’ve figured out the basics and you know how to handle the complexities of managing your website you can make more complex upgrades gradually.

Profit is great, but it takes time and hard work: Not every website is started as a hobby, the majority of website ideas are started for the purposes of making money and there’s really nothing wrong with wanting to operate a website idea that makes you money. However if you are wanting quick results and you aren’t ready to take the time to develop, maintain and market your website when it is launched, you are pretty likely to end up with a forsaken website pretty soon. Take pride in working on your website idea, tweaking it, adding content, promoting it, getting incoming links and making it better; this will position you best to have a popular website over time. Don’t forget to use tracking tools to ensure you are making the required progress, in time success will come. Specialists will assist best when it comes to tracking and monitoring progress.

Avoid the Doomsdayers: There is never a drought when it comes to free opinions on the Internet. Start a website, and you will be sure to find a lot of people telling you that your idea is a dumb one and they have advice on how to fix it. If you fall into the trap of listening to these people, you are bound to get discouraged pretty easily and you’re bound to have a forsaken website. Remain positive, avoid negativity and work hard, and always be on the lookout to constantly improve your website ideas. Follow this simple advice and you are on your way to having a successful website.

Don’t chose something you’re not interested in: It’s not compulsory that you set up a website that deals with stuff you are madly in love with, but it certainly helps if you are fairly interested in whatever your website or idea is about. If you find the subject matter boring the chances are that you won’t want to deal with the equally bothersome and boring task of constantly updating your site.

Select the right web hosting solution: People tend to pick out hosting plans as if they are talking about the fish that got away. There is always an interest in getting a large package with all the available bells and whistles. If you can afford it and it’s really what you need, fine. However, don’t go looking for the biggest if it does not match your immediate needs. Conversely don’t cheat yourself by selecting the cheapest package you can find, as its highly likely it wont suit your needs, and will restrict the site from delivering on what it’s meant to.

Make sure the site can be updated easily: The reason blogs are so popular is because they are easy to set up and easy to update. A website that is hard to update is never attractive to the owner and least of all its audience. If you want to help yourself remain interested, ensure you engage with a company that assists you in developing a website solution that is easy to manage. A good content management system is key.

Fresh Content is key: Even if your website is a business website, find a way of getting content that is frequently updated and which is about something that has to do with what you have to offer. Fresh content is the key to repeat user traffic as well as new visitors. Always keep more content than you need ready for addition. If need be, employ the services of a copy writer.

Check out your competition: No one is a one man army, if your website concerns a particular niche, make sure you take the time out to seek out your competition, this way you catch up on information, learn new tricks and constantly have a chance to improve and update your website.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 11:08 am and is filed under Design & Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.