10 Steps to Web Design

10 Steps to Web Design

What to consider when commissioning a website

When you are commissioning a new website, it´s a good idea to spend some time thinking about some of the issues that may come up in the design process.

This will give you and the web company a head start in the planning of your site, and help ensure you get the best site for your needs.

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1. The Purpose of your Website

The first thing to ask yourself when thinking about commissioning a new website is "what is the purpose of my site"? It might seem an obvious question - if you are a retailer you'd probably say "to sell my products", or for a brochure website "to have a web presence".

That's a good start - but being more specific can really help you and your web design company come up with a strategy that gets the best out of the web for you.

How will the site sell products? Why should people buy from you rather than your competitors? What will the site do to ensure you get that business?

So "sell my products" could become: "highlight the range of products I sell and the convenience of buying from me", "promote special offers", "emphasise that I am a trusted and established offline business as well as online retailer", "encourage customers to return to the site regularly" etc.

The more specific you are in what you want the site to achieve, the easier it is to create a site around these needs and to assess whether you and your web company have been successful.

It can also ensure you don't make costly mistakes - it can be very easy to assume you want a particular kind of site, but only later find it was the wrong strategy.

For instance, we were asked to do an e-commerce site for one client - but when we sat down with them to plan the site, it became clear that selling their products online would undermine their existing and successful agent network. Instead, we advised them to let us create a site that supported their existing sales plans. Sometimes the most obvious solution is not the best.

2. The Profile of your Web Customers

Who do you expect to use your site?

The web can sometimes seem like an opportunity to reach anybody anywhere, but marketing online has pretty much the same rules as marketing offline - define your target markets and don't try to please everyone or you'll end up pleasing no-one.

The look and even the functionality of your site should be aimed at the people you expect to use it. Make sure the site is designed for them, not for you.

3. Processes the Website must Support

Do you want people to contact you via telephone or email, or even not at all? Do you want to be able to sell products online? Do you want to update copy yourself or have your web design company do it for you? Do you need a search facility? Do you want people to book services online?

Analyse what your business needs are - the purpose of the site, mentioned above - then think about how your site can support these needs.

Bear in mind that, as a rough rule of thumb, the more functionality you have the more the site will cost you. That doesn't mean you should skimp on things you really need - if the function is one that your site needs it will more than pay for itself on a good site. But it does mean think carefully before deciding what it is you want.

If you are selling a couple of pages of products in one or two categories do you really need a search box? If you regularly change the range of products you sell, can you afford to pay your web company every time you want to add more, or would it make more financial sense to invest in a Content Management System and do it yourself?

One effective way we have found of focussing your mind on the purposes and processes for you website is to look at the commissioning process - and the ongoing management of the site - in the same way you would look at taking on and developing an employee. You can read more on this approach here.

4. Your Budget

A simple rule to remember when commissioning a website is "more functionality = more cost".

Before you decide on what you want your site to do, think of a realistic budget for the whole project.

There may well be functions you can't do without. For instance, if you want to sell products online it goes without saying that you will need an e-commerce facility on your site. But sometimes you may have more options. If, say, you were planning a site to promote your hotel you may want the functionality to allow people to book online. However, a cheaper option may be to simply have an enquiry form on your site which allows people to request you call them back about making a booking.

Your budget should not be based simply on cost, however, but on the return on investment you expect to make from your site. The online booking facility may cost more, but it could potentially bring in a lot more customers than an enquiry form.

Think also about extras. Do you need a logo? Do you need your copy to be written for you? Do you want more than one domain name? All these will add to the cost of your site, but again you need to balance the investment potential of good branding, well-written web copy etc against the initial outlay.

If you commission a site from Tickbox, one of the first steps we will carry out with you is to assess exactly what you need your site to do, and how best to do that.

If you want an interactive Flash map on your site, for instance, most web design companies could do that - but first decide with them if you really need it and if it will justify the cost.

Make sure any functionality you have earns its place on your site .

5. Logo and Branding Requirements

You may well already have a company logo and strong brand identity, in which case your web company should work with you to ensure that branding is carried over into your site.

If not, we would strongly advise you think about creating an identity - ideally with a professional branding company.

Branding has two main functions - firstly, used well, it creates a sense of professionalism. A good logo and strong brand image will reassure your customers you are a professional outfit.

More importantly, it creates a sense of trust. Think of the McDonald's brand (not everyone's favourite, I know, but a marketing triumph).

McDonalds success was built on creating a single identifiable brand that could be recognised anywhere in the world. Whether you are in Beijing or Boston, walk into a McDonalds and you could be in your own home town high street.

That sense of recognition creates trust - we all subconsiously trust people we have met before more than someone we have just met (unless we have had a bad experience with the former, but that's a whole other area of customer service!)

It works the same with brands. If you have a high street store with a recognised logo and brand, then when you set up your online shop, your customers will be more likely to trust it if the site carries the branding they know and trust rather than a totally different look.

Your branding should also be carried through all your marketing. Use your logo on letterheads, staff uniform, adverts etc. If customers have seen your logo somewhere before, you have already made a step forward in creating that all important sense of trust.

6. Content: Text & Images

Content is king on websites - both in terms of giving your customers what they want and ensuring the search engines look favourably on your site.

Web copy is one area people often look to save money on by doing it themselves - but for such an important part of your site this can end up costing you more in the long run.

Pretty much everyone can write, some people can write really well. But writing for the web is an art in itself. The importance of keywords, key phrases, usability, scanability etc make it essential the copy on your site is written specifically for a web audience (human and search engine!)

Images too are important. The web is a visual medium, and the difference a good, professionally taken picture can make should not be underestimated. Unless you have a stock of quality (ideally professionally-taken) images of your products, people etc, then consider commissioning a photographer to take these for you.

7. Are you ready/able to put the work in?

Your website is a marketing tool - but like any tool, it will only work if you use it properly.

Your web design company could give you the best website in the world, but if you don't invest your own time and effort into making it work, its not going to do what you want it to do for your business.

Keeping content up to date, answering email enquiries promptly, promoting your site offline and online - all these things are critical to the success of your site.

Make sure someone - yourself or one of your staff - takes responsibility for the site. If you are a sole trader and you go on holiday, who is going to answer your emails or despatch your products? Are all emails answered on the same working day? Who is updating your products pages when you get new stock in?

Used well, your site should be a virtual employee - answering questions for you, taking orders, offering customer service. In the overall balance of things, a good website will save you and your business time and make you more productive. However, it won't do these things on its own.

Sticking up a website and waiting for the money to roll in just isn't a realistic option. But if you have a good business idea, backed up by a good website, and you are prepared to make that site work for your business, then the time you invest in it will be paid back many times over.

8. Do you have a domain name?

Obviously, if you are to appear on the world wide web, you are going to need an address - a domain name.

Sometimes it will be clear what your name should be. If you are the BBC then bbc.co.uk makes sense!

However, even there the choice was not that simple. Why not bbc.com? There will be those who tell you .com is more 'prestigious" than .co.uk - but sometimes, for us and for the BBC for instance! - .co.uk is the better option.

Why? Because we only work in the UK, and the BBC is funded by UK taxpayers and is a flagship for the UK abroad - so it wants its roots showing.

Sometimes you don't have a choice - if Mr Amazon wants to promote his Somerset-based chain of Amazon Tea Shop online, he's going to find Amazon.com and .co.uk are already gone!

So think laterally - somersetteashops.com, for instance - then make sure everyone associates that domain name with your business.

Your domain name is the key to your webste. Stick it on your cards, your letterheads, the back of you car, your business cards, your paper doilies - get it out there whenever and wherever you can. It needs to be easy to remember, and it needs to be identified with your business. When people think of Amazon Tea Shops, they need to be thinking somersetteashops.com. There are other options outside of .com and .co.uk. For instance, if you are a non-profit making company or organisation, a .org address might be worth considering.

.net, .tv and many more are also available. They tend to be less memorable, as most people assume an address is .com or .co.uk, but used well can be effective (del.icio.us is an example of very clever, and successful, use of the .us top-level domain). Avoid using a variation of a well-known name with a different top-level domain - amazon.tv, for instance would just confuse Mr Amazon's customers.

Get your web company to check if the domain name you want is available - and if so, they can buy it for you. You can buy it for set amount of time - but try to buy it for at least two years. The major search engines don't look kindly on domains bought for only one year, as this is common practice among unscrupulous sorts setting up sites for phishing or spam.

9. SEO - how important is it for you to be at the top?

How important is it for you to be top of Google? Obviously it would be nice if you were one of the first names that came up when someone entered your chosen key phrases in a search engine - but is it essential?

For some of you it will be. In which case, you should hire the services of a specialist SEO company - but make sure you are confident of getting a return on investment when doing this.

SEO can be an expensive business. If you anticipate a top 10 Google ranking will generate £100,000 a year for you, then an investment of £30,000 a year in getting there is well worth it. If your anticipated maximum income is £29,000 though, its time to think of another strategy.

Beware of companies offering to get you to "the top of Google" for next to nothing. Google can be "tricked" into putting your site on its front page - but the trickery usually involves butchering your site's usability to the extent that your Google placing is little more than an exercise in vanity publishing, because no-one will by buying from you. Google also doesn't like being tricked, and will probably catch you out - at which point you won't even be on the last page of Google.

For many smaller companies, particularly in competitive fields such as tourism or property, it makes more financial sense to drive traffic to your site in other ways. Sponsored links (otherwise known as pay-per-click) on Google, Yahoo etc can be a good investment, as can joining good paid-for directory sites.

Off-line marketing and promotion of your website - even something as simple as putting the address of your site on the back of your car - can help get people on your site.

Again, try to work out how much you could realistically make and how much relevant traffic you need coming to your site to justify the cost before deciding on your SEO and promotional strategies.

Even if you successfully bring in visitors to your site using SEO or pay-per-click, constantly analyse whether you are getting a return on investment.

We know of one company whose pay-per-click strategy was bringing nearly 4,000 people a month into their online store. Unfortunately for them, nearly 3,500 of those visitors were from the United States - a region they didn't ship to. Successful SEO can only be measure in terms of return on investment.

Read more on SEO here

10.What are your future web requirements?

A good web company should build expandibility into your site, but it is worth thinking about how your business may grow and change right at the start of the web commissioning process.

It may be that all you need/can afford at the moment is a brochure site - but might you want to sell online in a couple of years, and if you do is that brochure site expandable to cope with this?

You may take just one or two enquiries a week on your site at the moment and cope well with them yourself using a simple booking system - but what if that rises to 100 or even 1000? Is the system expandable, or will you have to start again from scratch? Analysing your stats and assessing your web needs is an ongoing job - anticipate future needs early to make sure you are pro-active in keeping your site up to date.