Purpose-Backed Websites

Did you know that you can create a professional-looking how to create a website for free for free? With the right tools, the right knowledge, and some bit of design genius, you too can become the next big website design company.

The Perfect Website Platform

While there are free website platforms such as WordPress that can get the job done, building a professional-looking site from the ground up can be pretty demanding. Between the technical know-how and the design aesthetic, you'll need a platform that suits your needs. Luckily, there's an answer: purpose-built websites.

Purpose-built websites combine the simplicity and power of WordPress with the professional polish and features of a standalone platform. They give you the best of both worlds; a content management system that you can use to build your website and a standalone platform that supports all the advanced features you might need. With a standalone platform, you don't have to worry about whether or not you'll be able to get the basics done (like connecting pages and posts). You can focus on perfecting your product and making it better instead of struggling with platform-specific quirks (like setting up automatic page redirects on WordPress or dealing with FTP errors).

Design First

When it comes to building a website from the ground up, there's nothing worse than having a rough draft look more like a children's drawing than a polished piece of digital art.

Instead of making your designer or developer comfortable, make them work their magic for once. Have them design a mock-up of your website platform and present it to you as soon as it's done. During this time, you can work on the copy for your site and ask questions about the overall look and feel. This way, you'll be able to provide valuable feedback and ensure that the finished product looks exactly as you imagined it to look.

Make It SEO-friendly

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a vital component to any successful online marketing campaign. Your site's SEO will determine how visible it is to potential customers when they search for your products or services on search engines like Google and Bing.

SEO is different from general web design in that it requires a slightly different approach. Your SEO strategy should be built on a foundation of SEO-friendly structures and content. Some of the things that you might consider including are:

• robots.txt - This file specifies which pages of your site the search engine bot (or “robot”) can access and which pages they cannot. Having a robots.txt file allows you to control the indexing of your site and prevents spiders from indexing certain pages or sensitive information about your site.
• canonical tags and meta descriptions – Think of the meta description field as the little blurb that shows up under the search result for your site. The meta description should be concise and a good fit for the page it's on. Choosing the right canonicals for the page is crucial as well; these tags essentially provide the webpage's keywords. If your meta descriptions and canonicals are not sufficiently unique, they may end up being cut off by the algorithm as “toxic” content.
• URL Rewriting – URL rewriting is a mechanism that can help your site's SEO by enabling you to “reinvent” URL's for your content. When a user lands on a particular page of your website, the URL for that page will be displayed in the address bar. Sometimes, you might want to direct a visitor to a particular area of your site, but the address for that area might not have been provided (due to a lack of knowledge or intent). In that case, you can use a URL rewriting tool to “rewrite” the URL for the page so that it leads to the area or content that you want the user to see.
• Off-site SEO – Off-site SEO involves getting traffic from sites other than your own. One of the best, free tools for doing this is Google's own SEO tool, which can be accessed from your Google dashboard. With this tool, you can enter your competitors' URLs and see how Google ranks them.
• On-site SEO – On-site SEO is all about getting traffic from your site itself. You can use a variety of methods for on-site SEO, including but not limited to:
• Creating high-quality informational content that is relevant to your target audience.
• Using keywords and meta tags in your content and throughout your site.
• Including links to trusted resources inside and outside your website.
• Using social media to gain brand awareness and drive traffic to your site.

With the right tools and a little bit of planning, you can become the next big website design company. Just remember to be patient and try not to give up too soon.