Web Design: 10 Steps to Web Design:
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".
Laudable enough aims - 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.
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