Of these websites on the internet one can quickly see that some are professionally designed and others need some serious refining and fine tuning. As every person should do before a taking on a new website project, a website design needs analysis should be outlined that are specific on the purpose and intent.
For example, if the site is meant to be a sales website then appropriate ecommerce applications, hosting and security need to be considered. If the website is an information or "brochure" type website, then less expensive hosting environments can be considered.
Once the purpose is defined by the needs analysis, then a person will need to decide on a design or theme. This process becomes more subjective and individually involved, but can also be based on a current and existing company brand and collaterals or something that is newly designed where more of a 'white slate' is considered.
The best way to get this started is to look for suggestions from others and to collect ideas from those who have already published website or build portfolios and case studies. A good starting point to find something similar is to search the internet using search terms to see what your competition is doing in similar markets. If you type in a topic to a search engine such as google.com, yahoo.com, or msn.com you are bound to get website results based on the topic of your search query that will bring ideas and help with your direction.
As you refine your search you will gain increasingly more valuable information about how your competition display themselves, where they are located, how their business is presented, as well as how others are marketed online. If you are lucky, you will also be able to identify how their brand is represented in print and stationary by seeing press releases, presentations, online brochures or even sample advertisements.
Remember your website is an extension of your business and should represent all facets of your business for products and services, contact details, feedback forums, team profiles, as well as support information. When you have a handle on this, you may now think about how you can use your website more to support and interact with clients. For example, you can add small applications for downloading and updating materials, interacting with registered users in a discussion or help forum, participating on an opinion type 'blog', or even through permission based email newsletters and online marketing campaigns.
These steps should help you start your website today that is equal or better than your competition.
