When a funder hears about a small NGO in Bolgatanga, the first thing they do is search for it online. When someone in Accra wants to order smocks from a weaver in Daboya, they want to see her work and a way to contact her. A simple, honest website helps people trust and find an organisation. Building and looking after these sites is a skill that appears in Ghanaian adverts for communications officers, social media officers, IT officers and web roles, often naming WordPress.
Do they even need a website?
Start with the honest question. A trader whose customers all come through WhatsApp may be better served by a WhatsApp Business catalogue or a social media page. A website makes sense when people need to find the business through search, when funders or partners expect one, when there is more to say than a social profile allows, or when the business wants a place it controls rather than a platform's page.
What this section covers
- Choosing a website builder: the range from simple page tools to full systems, and how to match one to the client.
- WordPress basics: pages, posts, themes, plugins, user roles, updates and backups.
- Domains, hosting and a findable site: how a site gets its own address, who should own the accounts, and checks for speed, search and accessibility.
The parts of any website
Every website, however it is built, has the same basic parts: