Introduction
When starting a new website, it is important to “Ideate”, or start planning and preparing your website’s content and assets before you begin designing. This guide will help you best plan your layout and what WordPress tools you may need.
Every website tells a story
Your website is a story of who you are, and what you are offering to your audience. Each story has chapters. These chapters become the pages of your website.
A few examples:
- Personal: These typically consist of a home page, about me page, portfolio (artist, photographer, musician), blog, and contact page.
- Small Business: These typically consist of a home page, about page, services page, portfolio page, and a contact page.
- Mid-Sized Company: These typically consist of a home page, about page, staff page, portfolio page, location page, legal page(s), and contact page.
- Restaurant*: These typically include a home page, about page, menu page, ordering options, location(s) page, and contact page.
- Online Store*: These typically include a home page, about page, shop page(s), cart page, checkout page, account page, returns policy page, and a contact page.
Note: *Online ordering requires additional functionality for payments and other e-commerce needs. Additional add ons may be required to achieve your goal if your website requires these functions.
Preparing your written content
Once you have decided on the chapters (pages) of your story, it is now time to create the written content of your website. Each page should contain the information that your audience will need to know or be curious about. It should be clear and well written but also not too long as to lose the attention of the reader.
Since you may be still unfamiliar with writing content directly on your page with the editor, you may find it helpful to start by writing your content in a word processing software like Microsoft Word, or Google Docs. This will make it easier for you to copy and paste to your web pages later on.
If you are not a proficient writer, or do not have the time to write the content of your website, you may hire freelance writers to help you.
Heading Structure
When writing your content in Microsoft Word, or Google Docs, try to use the headings the same way your website will be using them later on. This will provide you with good structure and benefit your overall SEO.
Example of heading structure:
- Heading One (H1) This is the title of your post or page.
- Heading Two (H2) This will be a parent chapter in the post or page. It may also be the beginning of a new section on your page visually.
- Heading Three (H3) This will be a subchapter of the parent.
- Heading Four (H4) This is a subchapter of the child
- Heading Three (H3) This will be a subchapter of the parent.
- Heading Two (H2) This is a new chapter heading
- Heading Two (H2) This will be a parent chapter in the post or page. It may also be the beginning of a new section on your page visually.
Tip: When writing in Google Docs, use the outline panel to show the “table of contents.” This will help you visualize your heading structure and correct issues.
Preparing assets
You may have heard the saying, “A picture tells a thousand words.” This is also true for your website. A website needs images for the audience to see.
Options for website assets
Stock Images/Video: These can be obtained from many providers. Pricing varies based upon the provider and the licensing of these assets. While these may be very high quality, chances are that they are used on many other websites as well as yours.
Hiring a Photographer/Videographer: This option will provide you with the highest quality assets that are specific to your needs. You can provide your audience with the best representation of what you offer (A stock image of a cheeseburger is not “your cheeseburger”).
Using your own: Most smartphones are capable of producing images and video that are adequate resolution for your website. If you enjoy taking pictures and videos of your food, pet grooming, repair work, and products, then this option will work great for you.