Creating a Website That Works for You
Few business can succeed these days without a web presence. Even bricks and mortar businesses are expected to post information about their businesses on the web.A website's now one of the most important sales and public relations tools for any and all businesses. Given its undoubted importance, just how do you create a website that's not just window dressing and really works for you?
What’s Your Site For?
First decide what precisely you want your site to do for you. Is it just to disseminate information? Are you hoping to stimulate sales for your bricks and mortar business? Are you hoping to actually sell on the site? If so, you need what's called an ‘e-commerce’ site ie one that has a shopping cart facility which allows visitors to choose and pay for goods.
Who Should Design It?
Once you know what kind of site you need and what it should do, you could just write a brief and submit it to an appropriate web designer. Then again, you may feel you have the skills to design your own site. If so, you should still go through the process of identifying what specific customer needs and expectations your site will meet and what features/benefits you need to design in.
What Should you Call It?
Fairly early on in the process you'll want to identify and secure a suitable domain name. It's tempting to simply find the closest match to your company’s trading name. But it pays to think long and hard about what you might want from your domain name.
Try thinking of your web site as a real, literal shop or office for your business. Your reception or showroom is the home page, your ‘décor’ is your web design, you might have products in your online catalogue and you’ll most certainly have a "backshop" ie your site's administrative back-end. So where does the domain name fit in? Think of it as the big sign over your ‘shop front’. If you think about it that way, you'll see why associatedproducts.co.uk might not work as well as alltalianfoods.co.uk!
Choose a domain name that either reflects the products you sell or at least informs about the industry in which you trade. Choosing a domain name early is useful in influencing your site's design. Bear in mind your web designer or marketing company may be able to give you advice on the best domain name.
If you can incorporate at least one keyword in your domain name (see article on Search Engine Optimisation) this will positively affect your page ranking. Also bear in mind that most directories, lists and results are categorised in alphabetical order. So you can ensure you’re in the first few percent of a list by selecting the first letter of your domain name nearest to ’A’!!
How Do I Register the Name?
Once you’ve chosen a domain name you can register it yourself. The Web's full of online registrars who allow you to search available names, select the one(s) you want, pay online and manage re-registration when appropriate. Most offer a similar level of service but prices vary, so shop around.
Don’t by any means assume that once you’ve ‘bought’ your domain you’ve automatically bought the service known as ‘web hosting’. You haven’t! Web hosting companies rent out space on very large computers called ‘servers’. When your site is completed your designer will put the files, graphics etc. that make up your site onto that server where they will be made available to the end users.
Less is More
Whether you’re designing your own site or even handing it over to a web designer, don’t be tempted to assume that the more fancy graphics, colour, music, flash and general movement on your site the better. Yes, it’s great to make your site look distinctive, but overdoing the pzazz can drown out the content and message of your site and - in many cases - slow the site down substantially. Slowly loading pages can infuriate your user and drive them to another site. Restrict yourself to one or two gizmos and ask what benefits they really deliver before including them on your site.Usability
As well as addressing content, think about how usable your site is. Your site may rank highly on the major search engines (see article on Search Engine Optimisation) and you may get additional traffic but your visitors may well abandon the site prematurely if they find they can’t navigate it. Web users have a very limited attention span. You've only a few seconds to hook them and just minutes to maintain their interest.
In Conclusion….
Creating a website that really works has users thinking your company works. You don’t want to promote incompetence. You want to create trust, goodwill and a really positive impression. Good web design isn’t about spending vast sums of money. It’s about ensuring your site is user-friendly and your message is clear.
Post new comment