Getting Started
There are several factors to consider when organizing a website, such as&mdash
- what do I want my website to say?
- do I really need a webste?
- do I need branding (such as a special logo)?
- what images do I want on the site?
- what look do I want for the site?
- what functions do I want on the site?
- what domain name (or web address) do I want?
- will I hire a web designer or build the site myself?
- how will I go about getting the site hosted?
Here are some tips on answering these questions…
Content
An attractive site is certainly nice, but if the site's content is confused, incomplete or disorganized, the site fails in its primary task, which is to provide information.
Make the site content your primary concern—from the outset of the project to the conclusion. Work out what the site needs to say and how best to organize that information. This will make for a useful and well-planned site. Ideally, have a good portion of the site content ready when you first approach a designer.
Why have a website at all?
There came a time when having a telephone number became essential for most businesses. The time has come when this also applies to having a website. If people are looking for a restaurant with a specific menu, for example, they are increasingly more likely to check out a website than make a telephone call.
All the same, the point of having a website is to provide something useful for customers, thereby improving the customer experience and ultimately improving sales. If this is not the likely outcome of having a website, there is good reason to question having one at all. If a website does prove to be important, it should therefore be seen as an asset to the business rather than as a cost. (That is, don't focus on how much the website costs to produce, but rather on the returns it is likely to bring … which should far outstrip the cost of getting the website.)
Is branding necessary?
Many prominent businesses have a logo of some sort, which sometimes can be recognized by people world-wide even without including a business name. These logos are very expensive, though, and not always necessary. A nicely formatted business name is all many sites require.
Before requesting a website, consider whether or not a logo is necessary, and understand that it may well add significantly to the cost of the site if a logo needs to be designed from scratch. (It may be best to get a logo designed separately by a designer who specializes in logos.)
Images for the site
It is worth considering what kinds of images the site might need. Do you want pictures of your business on the site (such as the workplace or the staff)? Consider whether you can take these pictures yourself, or whether you should hire a photographer to take some for you.
Ideally, have these pictures ready when you hire your web designer, as they will significantly influence the design of the site.
However, don't despair if this sounds too overwhelming. If you want images that you can't easily organize yourself (such as the sun rising over the Himalayas), there are lots of sites that offer stock images of that sort of thing for a price, and your designer will organize those for you. Just try to be clear on what kinds of images you want.
Site design
It may be that you have no idea what your site should look like … or instead you may be very particular about the look you want. Either way, it is a good idea to look around the internet to choose sites you do like and provide a list of these to the web designer. That doesn't mean that the designer will copy the site (it's not really ethical), but it will provide a good guide.
Remember: it is far more important that the site's information be clear and easy to access. Far too much attention is often given to the look of a site at the expense of clarity and accessibility.
Site functionality
It is important for you to consider, from the outset, what you want your website to be able to do. Do you want to be able to manage the content yourself? Do you want shopping cart facilities? Do you want any other fancy bells and whistles? Be aware that these functions will probably add to the cost of having the site made.
The domain name
To exist on the web, your site will normally require a domain name, such as mysite.com. It can be a source of great disappointment to find that "mygreatidea.com" has already been taken by somebody else. (Unfortunately, some people make their fortune out of buying domain names cheaply and than selling them for a high price, just like real estate.)
If you find that your desired domain name has been taken by somebody else, you have a few options. If the domain name is not in use, you could contact the owner and offer to buy it … but you may need quite a bit of money! Otherwise, you can either check out the availability of your domain name with extensions other than ".com", such as ".net", ".com.au", ".info" or dot whatever … or you can just get creative and come up with a ".com" name that hasn't yet been taken!
There are many companies through which you can check for availability and buy your domain name, such as Planet Domain. There is normally a yearly fee for domain names, and prices can vary quite a bit, so it is worth shopping around.
Hire a web designer or do it yourself?
It is not actually hard to create a website. There are many software packages that provide all you need to get online—some of them free. However, there is a lot more to good web design than meets the eye. A good designer knows how to code a site so that it will work in all environments, load easily, and be accessible to all users. A shoddy-looking or poorly functioning site my be more of a liability to your business than an asset.
Web hosting
For your website to be available on the internet, it must 'live' somewhere—in other words, it must exist on a hosting computer somewhere in the world. If you are technically adept, it is possible to host your website on a home computer; but most sites are hosted on the computers of companies that specialize in managing and maintaining large, purpose-built web hosting machines (otherwise know as 'servers', because they 'serve' up web pages when people search a site).
Web hosting services vary a lot in price, and it is a good idea to shop around for a service that suits your need. Cheapest is not always best, though. Cheaper services will tend to pack a lot of sites into one computer, which can have nasty consequences, such as the 'bad neighbor' effect (where your site may be banned if sitting alongside another banned site), and slow service if the server is receiving a lot of traffic.
Page Affairs itself has its own VPS (or 'virtual private server') where all sites are hosted in isolation, thus effectively eliminating the chance of bad neighbor effect, and lessening the chance of server overload. This hosting is also offered at a very low price to website customers.
More information
Hopefully this introduction to getting a website has been useful; but if you have any further questions, please just ask!
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