Why does a good website matter?

My first website: why, what and how

- Why build a website? What advantages does a website have, and why should you build one even if you already have profiles on social media platforms?

- What should the site contain? Images, text, video, design? What works better on a website than on social media?

- How do you build a website? Which technical and creative problems have to be solved to build the site?

First, let us define what we mean by a website. Many social media platforms allow very detailed profiles, even for companies and organisations. It can be easy to call such an information page your own website. After all, it is a web page with a lot of information about you and your organisation.

But what we are talking about is your own web domain. A site where you have full control over what exists on it. Your own domain people can reach easily by typing the address in the search field, where you can present your own logo anywhere, and where you can publish all the content relevant to you and your organisation.

The creative freedom alone is reason enough to set up your own site. A good individual design helps users get a clear picture of who you are and how you choose to present yourself. But you also get to pull together other content you publish elsewhere. Most social media platforms have ways to embed content from specific profiles. That means more content in one place, which lets you keep a steadier stream of material going and gives users the chance to see more about you and your organisation.

Content is a recurring keyword for web profiles. If you have heard the joke about the property market where the three most important things for a good sale are location, location, location, you will understand why the quality of a web profile comes down to content, content, content. Without content a website does not survive long. So what kind of content should be on the site?

Most important is that the content is relevant. What counts as relevant is very individual for each site. But a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself a few simple questions. Is this something my audience is looking for? Is this useful value for my audience? And is this important information for or about my organisation?

Content can generally be split into two main categories: evergreen and temporary. Some content is always relevant, and even years after it is published it will draw interest. That is evergreen content. It can be anything from information about the organisation and which locations exist, to blog posts and stories.

Temporary content, on the other hand, is clearly time-limited. Either because the value of the content is tied to a specific period (a pre-Christmas sale is no longer relevant after Christmas Eve), or because it deals with a subject that only has temporary attention and in the long run is not directly relevant to daily life. Think trends.

A lot goes into content production, but you do not need a long education to understand the important basic principles. The key to good content is a good mix. Temporary trends draw attention, but it is evergreen content people come back to.

Good visual design of the content matters too. Again, to pull out the key points from a large and complicated field: the design should be coherent, tied to the visual profile you use elsewhere, and easy to use.

But most important of all when it comes to content: make sure it is yours. This is your website, so use the opportunity to present yourself and your organisation.

So we know why you should build a website and how important good content is. But how do you go about building one? Fortunately there are many different tools that help with exactly this. The technical side depends on the solution, but you do not need to be an expert in HTML and CSS to build a good website. Decide on a domain, a web address that is unique and easy for most people to remember. Sketch the site out so you have an idea of how it can be navigated and how it should look. Decide what kind of content is relevant and what kind of content you are able to produce. All of this groundwork can be done without writing a single line of code.

By the time you are ready to build the site you will have a plan of attack. It can either be handed to someone hired specifically to take responsibility for the site, or you can use tools like Webflow, WordPress or similar, which are simple to use even for those who cannot program.

Written by Dani Forstrønen