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So you feel it's time for your company to
have a website, but you don't know where to begin. Regardless
of who you hire to design and host your site, there are
a few things you can do in preparation that will make
the whole process easier for you and your web designer.
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Decide on the purpose of your website. Will it be an
advertising tool? Will you sell product or services
on it? Will it be an information delivery system for
your company? It's best to have all figured out before
anything else.
-
Gather all the information you can about your company.
Good sources can be sales sheets, advertisements,
brochures, fliers and pictures. Be sure to include
your logo. One of the biggest issues and cause of
delays in getting your website live is the lack of
content.
-
Organize your information into categories and sub-categories.
This will help in the initial design of the site because
the designer will know what to put in your menu and
sub-menus. If you information is well organized before
hand, your site will not only have a better design,
but will also be easier for people to find what they
are looking for. NOTE: If the information is pre-typed
and pictures converted to JPG's, the overall cost
of your website will go down dramatically.
-
Pick a domain name for your site. Try to keep your
domain name as short as possible and have 4 or 5 alternatives
in case your desired name is taken.
-
Shop around for a web designer (I would suggest BKdesign).
Often price will be a factor but be sure whoever you
decide on has the creativity to make your company look
like the professional organization it is. Take a look
at their portfolio and make sure all the websites work
properly.
-
Whoever you decide on to design your site, make sure
you get at least three mock-ups with both the opening
page and one inside page of your website. You don't
want any surprises. NOTE: A mockup is just that. It
may not be an exact replica, but you want to get a good
idea. Often the site will change slightly due to the
differences in software required to put it online.
Keep in mind that while you may want flash, motion or
sound on your website, these elements often require a
high-speed internet connection or a lot of patience. While
the use of high speed internet is increasing rapidly in
the U.S., more than half of the internet connections are
still on dial-up speeds. This means if your page takes
too long to load, you risk losing more than half of your
visitors because they will be too impatient to wait for
your site.
At BKdesign we keep our dial-up connection active so we
can see first-hand exactly how long it will take for your
site to load. We keep all of our pages functional with
less than 30 seconds load time with the slowest dial-up
speed. Most of our pages will still load completely in
less than 10 seconds (note this page loads in 4 seconds
on a dial-up connection).
Oh, by the way... we do flash. We just think it's best
to use it sparingly. |
