Tips to Launch your Website Fast

Launching a website can be stressful, so today, our friends from Hover will help relieve that stress and walk you through tips to launching your website. When everyone is vying to get online, it can feel like you need to launch your website quick in order to get ahead of the curve. As an entrepreneur with little time on your hands, it can be a bit overwhelming to think about all the steps necessary to complete a website build. The amount of tasks involved in making a great website can sometimes feel downright intimidating. That’s why we’re here to offer you tips on how to get that website up and running – and fast! There are many great services and products available that will ensure your website is up and running in hours, as opposed to weeks.

Website Design

First, we recommend starting on a CMS or website builder, such as WordPress. A CMS builder allows you to quickly move forward when building your website, without needing to acquire or apply technical coding skills. Boldgrid offers beautiful drag-and-drop templates with a ton of customization that allow you to complete your website design in under ten minutes. Your design is what will keep customers navigating through your website, clicking on those call-to-actions, and going through the sales funnel. It matters that your website is easily navigable, intuitive in use, and has your company’s overall brand feel applied.

Website Content and Media

Now to fill the website… this part tends to require more customization, but there are ways to speed up the process. It’s important that your content and media is on-brand, appeals to your audience, and has SEO value. Be sure to use your website to answer all the basic questions of your brand: the who, what, when, where, and why! If you can write sizable content pieces that answer each question, you’ll have a website up and running in no time. You will need to source media to garner interesting videos or photos, so look no further than a stock photo website. To handle sourcing images as quickly as possible (because we know it’s easy to spend hours getting caught up in the search!), choose websites that allow you to search by colour and select your brand colour or colours. You can choose photos that, at the very least, will align with your brand and can be temporary until you’re ready for a deep dive into photography. Kaboom Pics and Styled Stock are great options for stock photos released under Creative Commons License (CC0) that can be searched through by colour. BoldGrid has a great selection of high quality stock photos to choose from. Not only are images included in the inspiration, but also through a feature called “BoldGrid Connect.” Here you can search through free and paid image galleries to find that perfect image for your website.

When to Slow Down

A blog can take a bit longer to curate, so don’t rush into launching twenty pieces as soon as you can – start with a couple of key pieces and slowly release additional blog content over time. Take the time to research and study your customer to be sure the content resonates with your audience. Content can’t be just anything to achieve your website goals. If you want to speed up the blog content portion, reach out to friends, family, colleagues, or freelancers to source unique content, but ensure they have a handle on your brand, audience, and business objectives before they start writing! This will help you release content consistently over time so that your website is always active.

Domain Name

We are proud to say that the process at Hover for securing a domain name and connecting it to your choice service is smooth and easily navigable. When you land on our website, there is nothing to navigate around or click through – use that search bar and get started straight away! Search for your brand name or ideal domain and select any filters you’d like to help you find the domain name you’re looking for. After you’ve landed on our cart, simply click to purchase your domain, and it’ll be waiting for you in your account. If you’re looking to connect a CMS, such as WordPress, to your domain name and are experiencing any setbacks, just reach out to Hover’s friendly support team – we’re happy to help! The hosting provider you choose should provide instructions on connecting your domain name, so you can always take a peek through their help desk articles, too. Your website has gone live with speed – but is it speedy for your customers? The best way to make any website successful with its target market is to ensure it loads quickly. 47% of customers expect a website to load within two seconds. If your customers have to wait, they’ll bounce! Make sure to refer to Boldgrid’s tips on how to best optimize your website to not only make it great, but to measure the speed and increase it. Now, launch that website with speed and ease and get your awesome business idea live and online in minutes!

Samantha Lloyd: Samantha is a digital marketing expert and entrepreneur. She currently works for Tucows, taking on the content marketing role for their subsidiary, Hover. She loves filling you in on the booming tech industry of Toronto, and beyond. When she’s not working, she lives for travel and the ocean and is always looking for a chance to dive, snorkel, and recently – *attempting* to surf!