Why create a professional website?
Creating a professional website gives you a strong online presence, which builds your credibility and visibility. A website provides a central point where potential employers or clients can learn about you, which promotes networking opportunities. It also allows you to control your personal brand, express your unique identity, and facilitate communication. A professional website is a crucial tool for career advancement and personal branding in an age where everything and everyone is online.
1. Create a brand strategy
When creating a professional website, start by defining a clear and consistent brand strategy that will impact every element of your site, from the overall purpose of the site to the visual philosophy and tone of voice.
All of these things should become clear as you move through the following steps:
Identify your target market : Who are they? What demographics do they fall into? What do they like to do? How does your target audience perceive themselves? How will your business or website impact their lives?
Study your competitors : Conduct market research to get an idea of what your competitors are doing, their strengths and weaknesses, and how you can compete in this field.
What is the vision that drives your brand? Think about your brand personality and extract tangible traits such as colors, vocabulary, and brand style.
Prepare consistent branding materials : It’s time to get hands-on and prepare the materials that will soon appear on your website and other brand assets. Be sure to create a logo , as well as images, taglines, videos, text content, and more. These should all align with your brand identity and serve your brand strategy.
2. Master the design of the site
From choosing the right color palette to designing the right layout for your site, there are many aspects to consider when designing a professional website. If you already know how to create a web page and have some experience, you can create a professional website from a blank website template , deciding whether you want to create a static or dynamic site.
If you are worried about the time it takes to create a website and want to save time, you can also create a professional website with Wix by following these three steps:
Customize your template : It’s time to turn it into your own site by customizing it. Add all your content, including text, videos, links, and images. Wix recommends using JPEG, PNG, and GIF files for images so they’ll look their best on your site. Then, refine the design using the site and theme editor to easily align your site design with your brand. Customization can be as simple or as elaborate as you like. For inspiration, check out this selection of the most beautiful websites to get inspired.
Change the look and feel : Creating a professional website isn’t just about choosing fonts, colors, and images. You can incorporate a variety of media elements to enhance your overall aesthetic. Try adding background videos or animations to your website design to add movement, or parallax scrolling to create a sense of depth.
3. Optimize User Experience: Navigation, Content, and Readability
Your website needs to grab the attention of any potential customer, but to keep visitors browsing, you also need to provide them with a positive experience. A beautiful website that doesn’t function properly won’t get you very far.
Navigation flow : For optimal navigation, make sure the site structure is clear and intuitive.
Content hierarchy : Hierarchy is one of the seven principles of design, so it’s something you should pay close attention to. Your goal is to guide visitors through your site in the order that works best for you. When thinking about how to structure your website, make sure that the most important layout elements are the most visible. Reflect this hierarchy in your design, emphasizing the most important elements through their size, color, and placement on the page. For example, if you want people to sign up for your service, make sure the “Subscribe” button is prominent on the page.
Calls to action : Calls to action are short messages that prompt site visitors to take direct action. They can encourage visitors to “ sign up for free , ” or “ subscribe . ” They explicitly tell visitors what you want them to do and make it easy for them to understand what will happen after they click a button.
Readability : Readability is a basic principle of typography. Make sure to use clear fonts and comfortable font sizes, that your text colors contrast well with the background, and that there is enough white space around your written content. Check out Wix’s Accessibility Wizard for more details.
Footer: The bottom part of your site is called the footer (the top part is the header). Footers aren’t immediately visible to site visitors, but they can be used in a variety of ways to improve usability. Consider adding your contact information to the footer, including buttons to social media channels and your privacy policy. You can also display a simplified sitemap that links to all of your pages, along with a brief explanation of who you are or a disclaimer.
4. Optimize for search engines
Getting your site to appear first in search engines is one of the best ways to increase your traffic. That’s why it’s so important to prioritize search engine optimization (SEO) from the early stages of building your business website.