In South Africa, it is crucial for your small business to have a website. With many free and paid website builder options to choose from, you need little to no coding knowledge to bring your dream website to life (Source: Forbes). However, there are certain things to be mindful of, that generally no one would tell you about. When it comes to website building or web designing, you will require various assets to ensure your website is functional, visually appealing, and user-friendly.
What are Website Assets?
Literally everything you see on a website is an asset. For example, this paragraph, the links, the pictures, the URL… all of it is website assets.
Website assets are the components and resources, such as text, images, code, and design elements, used to create and maintain a website. Some are crucial, some are less important, but important nonetheless. It is important to be mindful of these website assets when you build a website in South Africa. Different types of websites may have different assets. For example, different websites may use different CSS stylesheets. These stylesheets may make a website’s functionality and responsiveness unique, thus making them a unique website asset.
At Digital Lime Green, we are mindful of your requirements and create and use assets in our website designing practices accordingly. Let’s take a look at a list of all important website assets.
A List of Important Website Assets in South Africa
1. Domain Name
Domain name refers to your website’s address (e.g., www.example.com). Here, the domain is .com, and your domain name is ‘example’.
2. Web Hosting
Web hosting means getting a server where your website files will be stored and accessible online. In South Africa, there are numerous web hosting options. We have compiled a list of South Africa’s best web hosting options in this article.
3. Website Content
One of the crucial assets of web design is the content itself. In South Africa, if you wish to attract your customers, content is what will do the trick. Without content, your visitors will just see a blank white page with no content in it. Then… what’s the point of having a website?
Text Content. Text is the primary medium of communication when it comes to websites. Always write and organise text for your web pages. What you write depends on your business. For example, we are a web design company in South Africa. So our homepage content contains basic information regarding our services.
Images. Images include graphics, photos, and illustrations. Not every website has to have images, really. But if your website does require images, it would be cheap to skip on including this asset.
Videos. Videos are an effective method to communicate and deliver vast amounts of information in a short time in an engaging manner. However, this is a strategic call as not all businesses may require a video on their websites.
4. Logo
If you have an online business, you might as well have a logo for your brand identity too. Logo helps with the branding of your business. We highly would recommend not skipping on having a logo. If you are looking for a logo design service in South Africa, we can help you with that as well.
5. Favicon
A favicon is a small icon that appears in the browser tab. It’s easy to miss on such a small detail but every good web designer will include a favicon for your website without fail.
6. Web Design and Development
You may not come across these assets if you are using a website builder. Or you may partially deal with coding if you are using a content management system such as WordPress. But these assets—the markup languages and codes—will always be present on your website, whether you are aware of it or not.
HTML is the core skeleton of your website’s structure. If you are using a website builder, you most likely will not deal with this directly.
CSS Stylesheets help you create or customise styles to control the website’s appearance. This is where the unique customisations for your website happen.
JavaScript adds functionality to your website, which streamlines user interaction and experience on your website.
7. SSL Certificate
To secure your website (HTTPS), having an SSL certificate is very important. SSL encryptions encrypt the connection between the visitors and your website so that no third party can read/hijack the connection. This way, a user feels secure browsing your website.
8. Privacy Policy and Cookie Consent
Depending on the nature of your website, you may need to create these documents. A Privacy Policy sets the foundation of how your website would handle user data. You can find numerous privacy policy templates online to get started.
Cookie consent is a user’s permission or agreement to allow websites and online platforms to store and access cookies on their device. Cookies are small data files used for various purposes, including tracking, analytics, and personalization. Websites typically request consent from users to comply with data privacy regulations and ensure transparency in data collection practices.
9. SEO Assets
Meta Titles and Descriptions. Meta titles and descriptions for your web pages/landing pages boost your overall SEO score. Make sure you include your target keyword in meta titles and descriptions.
Keywords. These are the words you would want your website for on a search engine results page (SERP). For example, as Digital Lime Green is a web design company in South Africa, we would prefer ranking for the keyword ‘web designing’. Of course, you can choose multiple keywords to rank for, choose different combinations and see how they fare for your website.
Sitemap. An XML sitemap that allows search engines to understand the structure of your website. It lists the URLs of a site’s pages and provides information about their priority and update frequency. This helps search engines index and rank web pages more effectively, improving a site’s visibility in search results.
10. Contact Information
Display your contact details, which may include an email address or contact form. This will allow visitors to connect with your business personally for any sort of enquiry. May also include your socials on this page.
Final Words
Without its assets, a website is basically nothing. To design a website in South Africa, make sure you have checked at least these 10 basic, yet important assets. These assets are technically what makes a website website. As a website design agency in South Africa, Digital Lime Green always makes sure to include these assets in our projects.
If you are in need of a website, Digital Lime Green is here for you. Feel free to browse our website design package or contact us for more information.