Launching a Successful Website, Step Seven: Growth
You’ve come a long way since you first envisioned your website. Ever since it launched, it’s been fulfilling its intended purpose beautifully thanks to solid construction, an enticing brand, and diligent maintenance by a team of experts. Congratulations; you’ve come farther than most ever do. Whether or not you stop here is really up to [...]
Launching a Successful Website, Step Six: Maintenance
“Good decisions are not made; they are managed.” – John Maxwell Maxwell’s point is that just making a good decision is easy. However, most people fail to live up to their good decisions. Only those who stick to their goals with consistency can ever achieve them. That is to say, the decisions that bear fruit [...]
Launching a Successful Website, Step Five: 3, 2, 1… Lift Off!
Every step so far has led up to this: Launching your website. Of course, the technical bits should already be taken care of, leaving only the launch itself. If your site is small, this can be as simple as turning the key and hoping for the best. More than likely, though, you’ll need to spread [...]
Launching a Successful Website, Step Four: Building the Site
You know what you want to build, you’ve got the experts to build it, and you’ve decided on a brand. The stage is set, so now it’s time to see your vision brought to life. Proper website creation can follow any number of different models. Like me, you may be going into the process with [...]
Launching a Successful Website, Step Three: Choosing an Online Brand
Now that you’ve defined the site’s purpose and identified your experts, it’s time to give it a brand. This is important from a purely practical standpoint because it’s difficult to develop a site without a name. Failing to give it one will inevitably result in a valueless placeholder like, “the new site,” that doesn’t convey [...]
Launching a Successful Website, Step Two: Identifying Expertise
Successful websites don’t just appear out of thin air. More often than not, they require a team of professionals to build and operate. Even websites that seem to be run by lone individuals (like this one) often involve the participation of others. Before actually beginning the work of creating the website, then, it’s important to [...]
Launching a Successful Website, Step One: Answering the Question of Purpose
Many blogs open their first post with an introduction to the author, a statement of purpose, and the invitation for those reading to come back soon for more interesting content. Since Ward on the Web’s primary focus is on building successful websites, however, I thought it would be a more fitting to start with the [...]