How to Start a Business on the Internet: Lesson 5
Your website is the face of your business online. Don't skimp. It's the difference between setting up shop in an abandoned warehouse, a busy shopping mall or a prime office building. For best results, consider what your customer wants to see, rather than what delights you.
Your Web Site
There are two or three or four considerations to weight when you are ready to design a website. First, there are basically two main elements when publishing a website. The Web Design and the Web Development. There was a time when these were two separate skill sets, and for some service providers, this is still the case. But on the whole, most website providers now have the skill set to provide both web design and development. When ordering web design from a professional organization, you want to inquire. Make sure you get both for the one fee.
You also want to inquire whether the web designer will provide you with a custom web design, a template design or a modified design of a template. The key here is the unique look. With a template design, there are going to be other sites with the same design. If this is okay with you, then make sure that the fee you pay is far less than a custom design. You don't want to pay a hefty fee for what you think is a custom design and then later find out that 50 other sites have the same design. Google "custom web design" and if you are in the USA, then Google "custom web design usa" and you'll likely find non-template web designers.
 How to Request a Web Design Estimate.
If you decide on a custom web design rather than a pre-priced website that already has features and functions included, here is a report you want. Download it.
Who to Hire
If you have decided to engage the web services of a professional designer, most new business people consider more than just the price. Low fees will generally get you a less than desireable website. This is your business. It's not a good idea to skimp. Here are two good reasons:
1. There is a lot more to web design and development than the public look of the site. Every successful site design includes search engine friendly keywords, a sitemap and few other key components that most qualified designers will add for you as a complete service. Beware. Some won't and these site will lose marketing opportunities and pay more to get web traffic.
2. Don't be disappointed with some service provider that overstated their capabilities or just plain delivered shabby work. Step up to experienced web design services that offers the whole enchilada.
Depending on price, find out how many user interfaces (UI) you get to choose from. Typically, it ranges from one (that you described) to three. Keep in mind that 3 complete designs cost more to cover the web designer's concept creation and time.
Successful Web Site
Here are a few features every successful website has:
1. It loads fast, because graphic images are optimized.
2. Your want your site to display a clear navigation and menu structure. That means your links or buttons should be placed near the top so people can find what they're looking for quickly and easily.
3. Images do not overpower pages.
4. The top banner is sized so that it does not obstruct the site's important message above the fold.
5. You absolutely want every page compatible with major browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera. This is a big concern for sites that are over 2 years old. Browser standards change, and an old site might be displaying crudely and you won't even know it.
6. Layout and configuration is a matter of choice, but for the most part, your site can hug the left side of the browser window or live in the center. You want to consider a width for viewing on large monitors, such as 1024 x 768 pixels or remain smaller. With cell phones, ipad and hand helds capable of viewing the web, you might want a small screen rendering, such as 750-780px.
7. Each page should have a minimum of 250 words or search engines may think the site has no substance and that means the site would not get indexed. Search robots would skip it, which impacts the amount of visitors to the site.
8. Every business site should have a way for visitors to opt-in to the mailing list and provide feedback.
9. Sites should have text links at the foot in addition to button, fly-out or text navigation menus.
10. Make sure development meets current browser standards. HTML 5 is about to be released. The issue with old development languages is that a site may not display well on other computers and you'd never know it. Inquire about whether the designer or developer will incorporate cascading style sheets (CSS) as this is where the Web is going.
Bonus for your website and web business.
You want current development to insure a pleasing display for the public across all browsers, a ranking based on search engine compatibility and a reduced timeframe for redesign.
Ecommerce
You can add a shopping cart to any HTML website, or start with an ecommerce website from the get go. Either way can work if it suits your business. A cost-effective solution is to start with a simple web site and add Paypal buttons to collect payment. There are plenty of shopping cart scripts that are pre-written and can be installed. You can also subscribe to a shopping cart for a monthly fee, and then simply link to it. |
