There are a lot of misconceptions about how easy or hard it is to 'make' a website. Some people seem to think it's a simple thing that anyone can do, while others appreciate that Gordon Ramsey did not get rich because he could boil an egg.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been to visit a new client and see a copy of Dreamweaver on their shelves, and I immediately know that their first thought was "I'll do it myself, how hard can it be?" Then after a few months they ring us.

So I'd like to talk you through the main things that you might want to think about before you begin - these are certainly the main things that go into our thinking and doing process.

 

Domains - Design - Development - Content - Promotion - Analysis

Domains - think about and reserve your domain names. Do not assume you will be able to get what you want, or that you will not change your mind several times along the way. These days your domain name very quickly becomes part of your identity - often being the name by which people refer to you.

Design - A website is a mixture of what you can see and what you cannot. The design needs to reflect who you are and who you are trying to reach. We think about things like colour, vibrancy, whether it is a dark or light site, how dominant your logo wants to be, how image-laden will your site be, what are the areas of greatest priority on your pages, how much text will there be, are you aiming for a young audience or a mature audience or a corporate audience, is the navigation obvious or suitable for your target audience, what sort of connection/equipment will they be using to access your site... basically who are your visitors going to be and what sort of experience do you want them to have with you? Likewise, are you happy with your logo and the rest of your corporate ID? Does it say the right things about you? Does it work in harmony with your website? Is it maybe something you need to revisit so that you can build the identity of your website around it, rather than it looking a bit tired and dated and draggint he rest of your site down with it?

Development - Six sevenths of an iceberg are below the surface, and thus it is with websites. We think about what sort of tools we can put in place to make your website run quickly and efficiently, but also to help you sell, communicate, interact, help and engage your audience in the most effective way possible. This also makes us think about hosting. What sort of levels of traffic are you going to attract, what technologies can best deliver your objectives, will there be any payment processing required, will your site gather data and if so what database is best suited to that...

Content - It is not uncommon for us to get all the way to the end of developing a site only to find that the client has not actually decided on what their content should be. Personally, I find good content takes a lot of hard work and revision and sub-editing to achieve. You need to be really clear on what you want to say, what tone you want to set and above all keep asking yourself if you've said too much or not enough. Also, use your content management system (you did intend having a CMS didn't you?) to keep refining it, and adding new stuff. Your audience will keep coming back if you keep giving them reasons to.

Promotion - I am sure this is obvious to you, but just in case, let's make it clear that the chances of your site being unique or of people happening across it by accident are not high. I have heard it said many times "but the search engines come and find it and then whenever anyone searches for my product/topic they'll find me, right?" Wrong. Do you have any idea how many sites there are, and how many new ones are added each day? If you really need people to find you then you are going to have to undertake some good old-fashioned promotional activity (advertising, changing all your stationery to feature the address of your website and other forms of promotion, for example) Also if you want to get a good placement on a search engine then you will need to pay someone to put some effort into it.

Analysis - For a small extra fee we can set you up to receive statistics on your website activity. Not just how many people visited it, but where they came from, whether they have visited you more than once, what keywords people typed into search engines that brought them to your door, which pages they lingerd over and which ones they left your site at. Valuable information to help you improve your site. We can even arrange for a report to be emailed to you monthly, weekly or even daily.

Of course you know you need a website. Not having one these days is quite a bold statement about you and your company. I don't have to convince you of that, but the fact is that thinking through the list above can be the difference between a good site and a poor site. The people who visit your site are bombarded with excellent stealth marketing a thousand times a day - if your website is below par, they'll notice.