Starting Your First Site: 5 Most Important Things for a Website

Having your own little corner of the internet, away from the social media algorithm overlords and endlessly changing ‘rules’, is wonderful. A website of your very own gives you the space to talk to potential customers exactly how you’d like, with no character limits or trending audio required.

But in practice  — and we say this from experience — the nitty-gritty of building your online presence can feel… overwhelming. In this guide, we’ll bypass the whelm and walk you through the five most important things for a website.

We’ve distilled our expertise into the website essentials — web design, copywriting, digital strategy, and SEO — giving you a step-by-step guide through each website component needed to get your business online.

First, Let’s Get Prepared

Before we get into the five most important things for a business website, there’s a little bit of prep to do. Getting all your ducks in a row now will make the rest of the process much easier.

Get Organised

Having all of the information you need for your website in one place is going to make this whole process a lot smoother. If your content is spread across two different notes apps, some Post-it notes, an email, and an old Dropbox account, getting your website up and running is going to take ages and feel like a real slog.

So before we do anything else, let’s get organised:

1. Go to your file manager of choice (we like Google Drive, as it’s good for collaboration, but you could use Dropbox or the file system on your computer)
2. Make a new folder called ‘Website’
3. Within that folder, create these subfolders:
   • Copy
   • Branding
   • Images
   • Admin
4. Find any work you’ve already done towards creating your website (e.g, you’ve already had a business logo made) and move it to the relevant folder

Create a Rough Plan (Sitemap)

A sitemap may sound fancy, but it’s simply a rough plan of the pages you want on your website. It will also form the basis for your navigation menu at the top of the site, which is an important part of the overall user experience.

You also don’t need posh software — you could draw it out on a piece of paper (like our sitemap below) or create it in a spreadsheet. You can also add to your sitemap as your business grows — don’t feel like you have to anticipate every page you might ever want.

The starred pages below are the important pages a website should have; others will depend on your business.

• Homepage *
• About *
• Contact *
• Products and service pages *
• Blog
• Lead magnets and newsletter sign-up pages
• FAQs or testimonials page
• Any other pages relevant to your biz

The Five Most Important Things for a Website

With your website broken down into your sitemap, you’re now ready to start fleshing it out with the five most important things for a website:

1. Copy
2. Images
3. Branding
4. Picking a website builder
5. Buying a domain name

We’d recommend leaving #4 and #5 until last, but you can complete the first three in any order you like

1. Write Your Copy

Using your sitemap as a guide, write the copy for each page and save it in your ‘Copy’ folder. 

In What Order Should I Write My Website Copy?

It feels tempting to start with the homepage, but we normally leave that until last (the rest of your pages can be written in any order you like).

Your homepage should act like a noticeboard for the rest of your site, leading your visitor to read more about your products and/or services on the other web pages. Since you’ll have already written all these pages before you start on your homepage, it should feel easier to create the relevant sections.

Do I Need to Factor in SEO & AEO When Writing My Copy?

SEO (search engine optimisation) and AEO (answer engine optimisation) are the most important tools for helping your dream customers find you online when they’re searching for businesses like yours.

When we work on web copy, we create an SEO and AEO strategy first, so we know which keywords need to be featured on each web page. Search can be tricky to master, so if you aren’t au fait with it, we’d recommend getting support with SEO and AEO.

Other Copy Considerations

• Guide prospective customers around your site and make sure they’re clear on next steps (e.g, booking a call or making a purchase) by including buttons or calls to action (CTA) in relevant places on each page
• Make a note of any additional information you’d like to include, like social media links, business hours, a contact form, newsletter subscription, or your booking calendar
• Include customer reviews and testimonials if you have them — this kind of social proof helps build trust in you and your brand
• Don’t forget descriptions and product reviews if you’re creating an online store
• If you plan on having a blog, make sure you have at least three posts ready to go before you launch it

2. Gather Good-Quality Images

Photography adds pizzazz and interest to your site, but it needs to be good-quality content, or folks will be put off. Save all of the photos to your ‘Images’ folder and your logo in your ‘Branding’ folder.

What Does ‘Good-Quality Images’ Mean for a Website?

• Images aren’t blurry, low-resolution screenshot
• They’re the right file format (JPG is best, or PNG if you need a transparent background)
• You have the right to use them — either because you created or commissioned them, or you got them from a stock photo website

What Images Do I Need for My Website?

• A logo (your business name in your brand font is fine as a placeholder if you don’t have one yet)
• Brand photos that show visitors who you are and your general ‘vibe’
• Product images (if you’re selling products in-person or online)
• Diverse stock images to add more interesting visual elements to your website 
• We’d also recommend getting at least one professional-looking photo of yourself to go on your home and about pages (ask a friend to take some high-quality photos of you if you don’t have professional brand photos to use)

Once you’ve gathered your images, use an image optimiser like TinyPNG, which makes file sizes smaller without losing quality. Having smaller file sizes is better for site speed, which improves the user experience as visitors aren’t waiting around for slow pages to load. 

Having smaller image files is also much better for the carbon footprint of your website, because it takes less energy for them to load and for people to view the page.

3. Pick Basic Branding (Colours & Fonts) to Use Throughout Your Site

Brand identity is a huge topic, and you could spend thousands of pounds on developing your brand if your business budget allows. If you don’t have the cash to cover a professional designer right now, you can DIY the basics with a little bit of know-how.

How to Choose Brand Colours

Colour psychology is a great place to start for choosing your brand colours. In a nutshell, different colours evoke different feelings in your target audience, and you can harness that for your business and website. For example, we chose yellow as the key Good Egg colour, as it evokes energy, joy, and creativity, and shows our sunny, non-corporate energy.

Equally, there might be colours you want to avoid. If you run a zen yoga studio, you probably don’t want bright reds or yellows in your palette, as these don’t create relaxing or peaceful vibes.

Once you’ve selected a colour or two that you’d like to use as the centrepoint of your brand palette, you can use the Coolors palette generator to get some combinations. 

You don’t need to go wild with colours, though. As you’ll see from our Good Egg palette, we just have two main colours, a secondary colour, and three tertiary options.

We always recommend avoiding pure black (#000000) or pure white (#ffffff) on a website, as they can be harsh. It can cause eye strain and also be hard to read for people with cognitive disabilities like dyslexia.

Once you’ve decided on your palette in Coolors.co, download it and add it to your ‘Branding’ folder. Then, make sure you use it to create consistent branding throughout your site.

Font Pairings

If you’re DIY-ing your branding, choose fonts that are available through Google Fonts. These are available as standard in most website builders, and you won’t have to faff around with licensing or downloading font files.

Like with colours, pick your font based on the vibe of your site. Elegant serif fonts wouldn’t suit a fun, youthful brand, whilst whimsical handwritten fonts wouldn’t work well for a dentist.

We recommend selecting one font for your headings and another for your body text. And be sure to pick a font that’s clear and legible — those swirly calligraphy fonts look lovely, but can be hard to read. No idea where to start? Pagecloud has put together 50 combinations of fonts to suit all sorts of aesthetics.

4. Write a Privacy Policy

A privacy policy lets people know how you’ll use their data, where it’s stored, and how they can control the data you have about them. Your policy terms should also include information about payment processors and mailing list providers, as it’s a legal requirement in the UK if you collect any data from visitors.

The ICO has a helpful article about writing your own privacy notice, or you could generate terms using compliance software like Termly.

If you’re dealing with a large amount of sensitive data or financial information, we recommend either purchasing templates created by a legal professional or seeking professional legal advice.

5.  Pick Your Website Builder & Buy Your Domain Name

Now you’ve gathered all your content, you’re ready to pick a website builder and buy your domain name. It sounds technical, but your domain name is just your website address — ours is goodegg.digital. Having a domain name also allows you to create a professional company email address, rather than having to use a Gmail or similar.

How to Choose Your Website Builder

You might have come across a lot of folks telling you to create your site on Shopify or Framer or Webflow or another platform that’s supposed to be “the best”.

We firmly believe that the best platform for your website is the one you feel happy using and confident updating, which is why we build our sites across a couple of platforms, depending on what our clients need.

After your own research, you might find you like a completely different builder, but here’s why we like Squarespace and WordPress:

Squarespace

Pros

✅ There’s a drag-and-drop builder and lots of templates to get you started

✅ It’s very user-friendly and easy to update (even if you don’t consider yourself techy)

✅ Squarespace takes care of the technical side, like hosting, backups, and general website maintenance

Cons

❌ Design options can be more limited

❌ You’re locked into Squarespace’s pricing and hosting, and it can be expensive to scale

❌ There’s a lack of advanced features and integrations

WordPress

Pros

✅ Lots of flexibility and choice in design

✅ Flexible hosting options, depending on budget and other priorities (like sustainability)

✅ Plugins are available for pretty much anything you need the site to do

Cons

❌ Has a fairly big learning curve and can be overwhelming

❌ You’re responsible for your own hosting, backups, and domain name

❌ Plugins can be temperamental and don’t always play nicely together

How to Buy Your Domain Name

We’ve suggested leaving this step until last, as some website builders, such as Squarespace, offer the first year of your domain name for free. 

If it’s not included in your chosen website builder package, you’ll need to buy your domain separately through a website like GoDaddy. Lots of these sites offer your first year for very cheap (99p or £1.99 is common), but remember to factor subsequent years of non-discounted domain registration into your business budget (typically around £20-£30 per year).

Once your site is ready to launch, you’ll need to connect your domain name to your site. The process is slightly different for every website builder and hosting provider, but you can use this query in your search engine of choice to find detailed help articles:

Connecting a [name of your domain provider] domain to [name of your website builder]

You’re Ready to Build Your Website 🎉

Now that you’ve gathered the five most important things for a website — copy, images, branding, privacy policy, and your choice of website builder — you’re ready to put them all together!

Take it slow and be kind to yourself — having an existential crisis whilst building your own website is very normal (even if you’re a web design and copywriting company 😉).

And remember, even when it’s “finished,” treat your website like a garden and keep coming back and tending to it. It should be a living, breathing representative of your biz, not a (something something).

P.S. Just Because You *Can* DIY Your Website, Doesn’t Mean You Have To

Handling your own website design and writing your own copy might not cost you cash, but it could cost you a lot in a different resource: time.

If writing and web design aren’t your wheelhouse, the 30+ hours it takes to write your own copy and design your site might be better spent elsewhere…