However, like anything a website needs to be created and maintained in the correct way. To help you to decide what should and should not be included in your website we've put together a list of things that you need to consider before deciding that you should have a website built.
Determine the goal of the site
This is the most important thing you need to decide before you even contact a designer to build the site. You need to clearly identify what you want your website to achieve. For example, do you want to sell products online or do you simply want to advertise products? Do you want the site to increase business for you or do you want it to serve as an information source for existing customers? Once you have your goal you can begin to build a list of sections (links) that you need to include on your site. For example, a home page, a contact page, a products page, a services page etc. Jot them down on paper, a visual representation is far easier to work with than trying to keep it all in your head. These sections will form the building blocks of your site with all other content deriving from them so it's important you include everything you need to in order for your site to achieve it's goal.
How often will the site need updating? Some sites don't need updating very often at all, whilst others need to be updated every day. You should consider this factor when thinking about your own site.
Who will update the site? Often if you don't need to update your site regularly it will be more cost effective to have your site updated by the person/company that built it and will also save you time. However, if you need to update the site regularly then you will benefit from having your site built with a Content Management System (CMS) included. Content Management Systems allow non-technical users to add, edit and delete content from a site quickly and easily. In addition to text content you can often add mulimedia assets such as images, photo galleries and video links to your site too (with no coding knowledge).
Content Management Systems can save you money Initially a site with a Content Management System included will cost you more money than a site without, but over time it will be more cost effective for you as you won't have to keep paying interim charges to the site desgin company for updating your site.
Choosing a domain name A domain name is your website address. It's the www. bit. It's something every website needs and it's important you choose the right one. Most businesses usually use the name of their business as the address, although sometimes this is not possible and so an alternative has to be chosen.
Here are some tips for choosing a good domain name:
- Don't choose long names that are too long - as well as being a bind to type in you may also find that fitting the domain name onto your letterheads and other stationary becomes difficult due to the length.
- Don't include words that people often mis-spell - an example of this is the word veterinary. I used to mis-spell this all the time until I actually worked within the veterinary industry as a web designer. It would be far better to use the words vet or vets in your domain name.
- Choose a domain that's right for the markets you sell to - if you only provide services to the uk choose a .co.uk domain name, if you sell internationally then .com is better suited
- You can have more than one domain name pointing to the same website
- If someone has a domain name that you really need they may be willing to sell it to you. You can contact them to discuss this matter, just be prepared to pay for it
Choosing a corporate identity for your site with colours
Quite often your company will have it's own corporate colour scheme and these can be included in the design of your site. If you want to proceed in this manner you should provide your website designer with existing business literature (preferably in some form of electronic format) to enable them to sample the colours and use them in your site. This is a good idea when you want to maintain a consistent look to your branding.
However, sometimes you may need to choose different colours than the ones you use for your business, for example, if the website is a sideline business or you're expanding the services you're offering by introducing new products, for example you may be a company that primarily provides bathroom suites, but have decided to branch out into heating products too. In this example you would need a different colour scheme for the website that showcases your heating products than you would on a website that showcases your bathroom suites. You shouldn't be afraid of allowing your website designer some creative freedom once you've decided the time is right for your website to be built. A good web design company will discuss this in-depth with you (and preferably face-to-face) in order to get a good understanding of what you need and will present you with draft designs before agreeing upon a final design.
Final Note Hopefully you'll now have a better understanding of the factors you need to consider before you have your website designed and built. We'll be providing more articles in the future about things to consider once your site is built. Thanks for reading.
