You Want a Website?

Check what others are doing.
It's always a good idea to check what similar businesses are doing - a bit of research before you start can give you some decent ideas. Look at some websites that are related to your product or service. Pick out features you might like on your site or look similar to the way you want your site to look

Determine the Purpose of your Web Site
Do you just want to just advertise your business or do you want to start an online community to share with others.

Think About the Design:

Name Your Pages
Next you should decide how many pages your website needs, what those pages should be named and what information you want on them.

Common page names for a typical site include; Home, About Us, Contact, Services, Map, Links, Photos, Qualifications etc
   
You should already have a good idea about your pages from the research you did on competitor’s web sites.

Determine the Look and Feel of Your Site
Your website will be representing your business. It should be more than just an online advertisement. Your page should be well organized, well written and attractive.  Don’t annoy your visitors by including animations or items which take ages to load.

The colours used in your pages should be appealing and where possible they should match up with any business colours or stationery you use. 
Try and capture the “feel” that you want for your site. Do you want a serious site or something a little less formal. Keep your navigation between pages simple above all be consistent.

Custom Graphics and Photos
Where you can keep the number of images on your home page to a minimum so that it loads quickly. You may need a logo created for your site or to match with your existing business theme and you may need banners to advertise your site.

Choose a Domain Name
Your domain name is important. If you have a domain name like www.hereweareinmaltby.com/oursites/yourbusinessname.htm, the likelihood that anyone will remember it and come back to your site is remote. Try to choose a name that has your product or service in it like www.petersplumbers.etc

We can give you a link where you can search for available domain names – it’s remarkable how many have already been taken.

Hosting Your Web Site
Web hosting is basically the place where your website is stored. Your site is stored on a server along with other websites and your domain name points your visitors to that server. 

Our advice is to always start small – you can always add information as your site (or business) grows.

Submitting Your Site to the Search Engines
Getting a top position in search engines is a very tricky thing to do. There are many directories and they all want different information. To get onto some of then you have to pay a fee and others are totally free. Some of them are operated by “robots” and others are reviewed by humans.  Some want you to submit weekly and some will ban your site if you submit more than once a month.  We would advise you not to use an automatic search engine submission service but to submit your site by hand to the major search engines and directories.

Promote, Promote, Promote…and then Promote Some More!
This is, by far, the most important step of all!  Make sure that your site is seen and remembered any way you can.

Here is a short list of ways to promote your site some may work better for you than others.
 
Advertise OUTSIDE the Internet! Put your web address on your business cards, notice board, emails, business letterheads and in your newspaper adverts.

Try anything! Be creative and never stop promoting your website!


We hope that you found our Web Design Checklist useful. If you follow all of these steps you have a good chance of a creating a successful site to help your business. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us and we will be happy to help in any way we can!

Good Luck!