Website Design Start Point | Website Design Construction Plan
When you decide that you definitely require a website you should have a very clear picture of what you want it to achieve for you.
Getting your Website Design right is important – so we get you thinking!
With this in mind we thought it may be helpful to get you thinking about certain aspects right from the very start. Hopefully this will go some way towards guiding you.
What do you want your website to do for you?
Your website can provide you with many different opportunities and you need to be very clear as to what you wish to do, not only now, but possibly in the future, as this can effect the path you take when initially designing your website.
Do you want to market your website locally, nationally, internationally?
You may immediately jump at the “international” option, however you need to be realistic. If you opt for international you will need to budget to get it noticed internationally. Depending on what your product or service is this will make a difference to the budget required. Enter “software” into Google and see the “2,790,000,000 results” as opposed to Cornish software showing “368,000 results”.
How do you expect your customers/clients to find you?
Will they use google? Do you already have a large customer database that you can utilise to form a “mail shot” promotion? Will you use local advertising etc?
It’s a good idea to have a realistic plan of how you are going to get to the audience that you wish to target. Remember that using google will require a lot more than designing the website and hosting it.
If you are using Google then you need to have a clear understanding of how your customers/clients will find you. With this in mind you need to have a list of “keywords” and “key phrases” that your customers/clients are likely to enter into a search engine. These are crucial to your business and they need to be listed from the very outset.
What are your target audiences?
Understanding the audience that you are trying to target is very important. Understanding your audience allows you to design and market accordingly. Age, sex, education, income, hobbies and pastimes etc all help build a picture of how to develop a successful website design.
Do you expect your website to be static or dynamic?
In basic terms will you keep adding to your website over time or not. If you are likely to start out with a small website of a few pages providing information on your goods and services with a contacts page and hope to grow your business then it is highly likely that you will want to grow your site with your business.
Will you keep in touch with your customers/clients? If so how? Your website could do this for you if you develop from the outset.
Understand your competition?
What are their strengths and weaknesses and what are their websites offering that you like and don’t like. Again it seems obvious, but understanding what you are up against allows you to set realistic goals and objectives. A competitor with a website that has been established for several years maybe difficult to rank above.
Website Address is Key
The website address is an important area of your website development so think carefully about domain names and the .co.uk and .com variants. You can check if they are available using this website, you can purchase more than one and have the ones you don’t use point to the website that is developed. Further info on domain names can be found here.
Make sure you jot down all the things that you think of regarding your website design. My preference is not to go charging straight into design to getting something up and running quickly. I believe that all customers should be allowed a little time to think about the above and to make some notes, from this the next steps can be taken.
