It is rare that a successful business now days does not have some form of a website. Startup and small businesses realize that in order to be successful they need to have some type of online presence. However, getting that website created should not be taken lightly and should be prepared for. With a better understanding of what is needed by you (the client), the process can be a little less painless and you may even shave some time off of the project timeline.
Where do I start?
Have a sound business and marketing plan! In my beginning stages of web work I found myself spending too much time on developing a potential clients whole business rather than providing a web solution, or creating another way for them to generate income online. Getting a website is not the magical answer to all of your business problems. Some have the mentality that once the website is up business will take care of itself. From time to time I will review their web statistics to see how they are doing only to find out they have very few visits per month. What’s sad is that most of the visits come from them checking to see if they pop up in Google. Before considering a website you should know your business and know how a website will help boost your business. You should have a plan on how a website will work in conjunction with all of your other marketing materials.
Expect to spend money when having a website designed, developed, and marketed. (See my entry on “How much does an average website cost?”) Like all marketing or advertising it takes money, time, and consistency. With the right company alongside effective and creative use of your budget, you will be able to see substantial results. Clear your mind of cheapness, this is not an area where you want to find the cheapest solution, nor do you want to always go with the most expensive. Look for the most value, and take some time to understand what is valuable and what isn’t, always ask questions and do not assume.
Often I hear the story of how a potential client was ripped off by the last company and how very unsatisfied they were. I ask them what went wrong and the answer is usually we did not get what we needed. Then I ask them how much they spent and what their goals were/are, followed by who did it – and the price is always very minimal and the expectations are reasonable expectations but cannot be achieved on the minimalistic budget. If your budget is minimal search for other ways to leverage your business online until you are fully ready to submerge or see about completing the project in steps. What I mean is Step 1: Get an online presence that states where we are located and what we do. Step 2: find ways market the site online. Step 3: Provide a way for customers to buy online and so on. I think it is more so the web designer or developers job to provide ways for your project to be successful, make sure you fully understand what you are getting, and keep your project within the scope agreed on by both parties.
Draft your content up front
Great designers design around content. The more content you have readily available for the designer the better. By having content up front the designer can think about different ways that the content can be presented. Creating content is also one of the most time consuming phases in the development process. Even if the designer comes up with a great design that both parties agree on you still have to have text, images, audio, video and etc… to fill it with.
I recommend thinking about each of the sections you would like on your website and what you want them to include. Your products and services sections on the website will either help make or break a sell so try and focus most of your energy on developing descriptive content for each of your services. Do not spend too much time on creating a beefed up “About Us” section. While some may care that you are a family owned business and been around since 1856 most just want to know how can you help, and how much is it going to cost.
Think about the frequently asked questions by prospective buyers. Can you alleviate some of these headaches or grey areas by having great content? Also, think about how can you persuade them that you have the best, most affordable, or most unique service or product around? Let your website do the qualifying for you by separating the tire kickers from the actual buyers.
Scour the web for examples
When looking for design ideas surf the web and take note of what you like and more importantly take note on what works. Designers are a dime a dozen but real web strategist are hard to find, so therefore eye candy is easy to get but putting the design to work is a little more difficult. Also, study the trends of your current industry and adapt and apply only the best and most relevant information or features to your new online home. Survey your customers or soon to be customers and let them tell you what would be a feature that would make life easier for them. Ask current customers what would have helped during the sales process. Would more information on your products help the buying process? What about a gallery of the custom work you have performed? It doesn’t matter what it is, just find out what will help your prospective buyers and play off of that.
Examine the websites that you frequently visit and highlight the features or the way that content is presented. Think about the sections that will change the most, will it be a news or events section that gets updated weekly or is it the section right in the middle of the home page that informs visitors of the special of the week?
Help the designer get inside of your head by selecting at least three websites that you like. Choose one that has the right blend of colors, choose another for the great placement of content, and choose another that has the functionality that you would like to see on your site. As you start to understand what you want it will be easier to pass the vision off to the designer. The examples that you select do not have to be from the same industry as yours, look beyond what the content is saying and use your selections as a guide for success.
Create easy to remember and relevant web domains
If your company name is difficult to spell, come up with alternatives or buy the domain names with the common misspellings and forward them to the real website. An example would be http://www.gogle.com when you click on that link pay attention to the URL and watch it change tohttp://www.google.com. Thinking ahead like this will cut down on the phone calls that go similar to this “I tried to go to your website but nothing came up” or even worse “I tried to send you an email but it keeps bouncing back”.
Another direction that you may take is to think of a relevant keyword, keyphrase, or if you only deal locally use your city or state in the combination. Find out what you are most sought after and use that. If you have two strong points try and combine them if they are not too long. For example a pizza shop in Columbus, Ohio may use http://www.GreatPizzaColumbus.com or an organic pizza place may use http://www.OrganicPizzas.com. The idea is to make it easier for the potential customers to get to you.
Domain names are fairly cheap and it never hurts to be safe than sorry. If your company name is easy to remember you may choose to use a location based URL and your company name. Remember, there is a fine line between being safe and being a spammer so be careful and do not go crazy on buying domain names two at max should be enough for most.
With this preliminary work done up front I am confident that your project will go a lot smoother and your web development company will know that you mean business when you step into their office. Understand that most small businesses and especially startup businesses are usually way unprepared and you will be ahead of 90% of the people seeking web development.
