7 Time-Saving Website Building Hacks for Busy Creators
Building a website can be a challenging process, even if you have experience building a website prior to this point. While some platforms and plugins can make it all a lot easier to do as a process, there’s still plenty of work from your end that needs to be done to make it successful.
With that being said, there are plenty of time-saving website-building hacks that can be useful to implement, especially when you’re a busy creator. From using templates to preparing content ahead of time, here are several tips worth knowing so that you can create a flawless and high-performing website.
#1 Use templates and UI kits
To help save a lot of time and effort on your part, creating code and developing designs from scratch, you could always look at using templates and UI kits instead.
Pre-made website templates are commonly used by creators who are looking to spend less time on the complexities of building web designs from scratch or may have limited knowledge in coding.
While these pre-made kits and templates might already be used by other website owners, picking out ones that haven’t been downloaded much can still make the site stand out for the time being.
Some web owners might want to get their website design custom-made eventually, but having templates is a good starting point, especially when you might not have much in the way of a budget available.
#2 Prepare content ahead of time
It’s always handy to have content prepared ahead of time. That way, you’re getting ahead of your content schedule, even if the website isn’t live yet.
Having copies and images ready before you start designing your website can make a big difference to how productive you are in those first initial days and weeks of getting your website off the ground.
Working with actual content that’s readily available allows for a more efficient design process and also prevents time-consuming layout adjustments later, when the dummy data is replaced.
Having plenty of content ready and scheduled can also make it easier when it comes to garnering that traffic for your site. It’s important that any new site hits the ground running. Having content ready to go will certainly help with that.
#3 Automate repetitive tasks
Automation tools are a great way to help streamline your efforts and save time on doing the monotonous and time-consuming tasks that can otherwise be done by a computer.
Automate Repetitive Tasks: Utilize automation tools for tasks such as image compression, CSS minification, social media scheduling, and client onboarding. Services like Zapier or built-in website builder automation can help streamline workflows.
Many are even turning to an AI website builder to build their website instead of having to do it all themselves. Of course, tools like AI should be used as an assistant, rather than having full control.
Automating the repetitive tasks is going to save you a lot of time and effort, as well as help you focus on the details that really transform the website into something more dynamic and one that stands out from the crowd.
#4 Implement a consistent style guide
Defining brand colors, spacing systems, and typography rules in a style guide from the beginning is helpful. That way, you’re not making mistakes or errors in some of the style choices being implemented across the site.
The more consistent you are, the more fluid your website will be. Therefore, it’s good to know what brand colors you’re using and to ensure none of the colors clash with one another. You should also be aware of what fonts you’re using, too, being sure not to use too many different variations.
Consistency ensures every element of your website looks like it belongs, and that can also help to save time on design decisions, as well as user confusion.
#5 Prioritize and break down tasks
To help take on the mammoth task of creating a website, it’s good to make use of project management tools like Trello or Asana. These are great for breaking down larger projects, like a website build, into something smaller and more manageable.
It’s also crucial that you’re listing your tasks in terms of their priority, rather than just having an unordered list of tasks to complete.
Breaking them down and prioritizing the tasks with the highest return on investment will help you focus your energy more efficiently.
#6 Optimize images and code
To help ensure all of your imagery is optimized for your site, make sure that you’ve compressed and resized it all appropriately.
Of course, you don’t want to diminish the quality of these images, but by compressing and resizing them, you’re going to help your website's load times by shortening the time it takes for the pages to fully load.
Minify CSS and JavaScript files too in order to reduce their size. You’ll find that many website builders, like WordPress, for example, will offer plenty of opportunities to automate these technical optimizations. Another task that you can leave to the computers to do instead of wasting what precious time you have available.
#7 Leverage keyboard shortcuts
Finally, when it comes to keyboard shortcuts, it’s good to learn and use them within your design software or within the coding editors if you’re using these. It’s a small but significant change that can dramatically cut down a lot on your design time, as these shortcuts will eventually become second nature.
Building a website isn’t an easy process, but thankfully, there’s a lot more available nowadays to utilize to get to the result a lot quicker and with much less effort.
Automation and other tech tools can sometimes take the fun out of design and creation, but it’s how you choose to use them that will influence your enjoyment and how much you gain from using the tools available.
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