Creating an effective website for your business can be difficult. If you don’t have a strategy for doing so, you could spend a lot of money without getting the desired return on your investment.

One of the biggest mistakes is neglecting the user experience. You need to think about what content your customers would like to see and how they want to digest information about your services.

With a little preparation and effort, you can have a site that works day and night for your business like a tireless salesperson.

Brooks offers seven steps to creating a successful website for your business.

1) Study the target audience, what they are looking for and what they want from you – First, ask yourself who the target audience is for your site. What information will they want when they arrive at your site? How do they expect to navigate your site?

To answer these questions, create ideal customer profiles as part of your marketing plan.

2) Decide what your site will be used for – Determine the function of your site. “Do you want to sell online, find new leads, or just provide information about your business and products?” asks Brooks. “Perhaps you want to combine all of these goals?”

3) Build your website with WordPress STARTING AT $2.95/mo – With Bluehost, you get all the benefits of the world’s most popular site builder in a smart, secure, easy-to-use package. Bluehost marketplace gives you access to hundreds of free and premium website themes. Choose a hosting package that suits your needs and start building your website today.

After that, however, you may find it very difficult to optimize the critical aspects of your website. These include the user experience and technical requirements for the main interface. The services of a website developer are more expensive, but their experience and expertise will ensure that your website produces the desired results.

4) Set a budget – Make a realistic budget for this project. To get an idea of what it will cost, talk to other entrepreneurs, consult trade associations or talk to professionals in your network. You may also want to consider financing if you don’t have the funds available. To learn how to budget for your website, read this blog post. Remember, a well-done website is an investment in your business.

5) Ask for proposals – If you decide to hire a professional to create your site, review a few proposals. Ask for references and look at the candidates’ past accomplishments. Make sure that the strategy outlined in the proposal matches how you want the website to work. You may want to pay for training for your team to be able to do your updates in-house. In addition, you need to make sure you stay on top of maintaining access to your digital assets.

6) Create content – Whether you develop your website yourself or hire someone to do it, you need to create content. It should be interesting, informative and designed to turn users into loyal customers. So consider including high-resolution photos, customer testimonials, demo videos, blogs and links to social media pages. Present only the important information and keep it concise, as visitors shy away from pages filled with text and vague headlines. Always think about what your target audience would like to see on your website. For more tips on content creation, read this article.

7) Update and optimize your website regularly – Online marketing is an ongoing process. As with any marketing effort, you need to monitor your data to continually improve your results. You can do this by using digital tools (like Google Analytics). Regularly check how many people visited your site and what information they viewed. You can then use this data to test different content types and design features to see which ones produce better results.