How to Build a Great Website

If you want to build a great website, how do you do it?

A horse designed by a committee is a camel

If you want to build a great website, the number one mistake most people make is not that they’re not thinking “big enough“.    

On the contrary, most mistakes occur because they’re not thinking “small enough“.    

To build a great website, it doesn’t take rocket science. But too often a great idea gets bogged down in committee, or shot down by an influential person with a different agenda–and it’s too bad because everyone suffers.    

The number one failure of most websites when you want to build a great website is a two-pronged failure: (1) failure to articulate the vision, and (2) failure to execute. That’s why I am a big advocate of web projects that are small and easy.    

To Build a Great Website, think Small and Easy

Small is understandable. Easy is doable. After you’ve had a success or two, then you build from there. First you build a great website - then you promote it (using SEO, PPC, Blogging, Social Media, PR) – and then you enjoy the results (and you keep working on improving).    

In the small and easy spirit of projects that are both understandable and doable. here are seven ideas that will help you build a great website that will yield many positive returns for your business or community.    

Seven Small and Easy Steps to Build a Great Website:

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Ogilvy Magazine Ad

Client: QMI – SAI Global

Challenge: Create a Magazine Ad to Promote their Free Food Safety Webinars.

Services: Copywriting, Graphic Design and Layout.

Additonal Information: I used two classic formulas: one for copywriting, and the other for the layout. The AIDA formula stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Call to Action. The “Ogilvy” layout includes a Graphic, a Caption, a Headline, Lede/Body Copy, and a Response Box for the Call to Action.

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Human nature hasn’t changed and neither have the priorities required for successfully conveying your message.

Contrary to common opinion, David Ogilvy didn’t have a preference for long copy.

What he had was an overwhelming bias towards anything that had been proven to work (which included long copy).  Ogilvy’s real, professed preferences were for consumer testing, research-driven techniques, and performance-based advertising in the truest sense of the term. Read more >>