The beginning of a website is exciting. You have big dreams of a beautiful new site that will rocket your company to the top. There are lots of ideas floating around in your head about the design, functionality and features for your website. We know from experience that channeling those ideas into something that will meet the functionality your visitors’ needs, be aesthetically pleasing and present features to keep users involved on your site can be difficult. Here are some tips into make the most out of your initial meetings with your web design company.
1. Find examples of websites you like and websites you don’t.
To get an idea of what you want, it is important to look at websites in all industries, not just your own. While your competitors are important to look at, right now is just a time to gather ideas. It is important to note what you like about each site and what you don’t. Make a list of color schemes, designs, features and elements to sites that you think are neat and might want to include on your site. You might even consider using a table like this to make your list
2. Know your target audience.
Who is your website for? Is it age range, gender or interest specific? Knowing if you are targeting children, young adults, males, females, people interested in purchasing clothing or a group interested in learning more about archery is important to the design and functionality of your website.
3. Have a realistic timeline in mind.
A typical website process takes 2-4 months depending on how the design process goes and the scope of what needs to be programmed. E-commerce sites will take 4-8 months based on how many products need to be added to the cart and how much time you have to devote to entering in products and sorting out the payment and legal matters involved.
4. Be thinking about content.
Having your website content done when you site is done beginning programmed will help your site launch on time. There are several ways this can be accomplished:
- Transfer existing content from an old site
- Write new content internally
- Use Webspec’s content writing services for assistance in content completion
- Have Webspec’s content writers generate completely unique content for your site
5. Have possible features in mind.
Is there a function that you would like your site to preform? Do you need to register people for upcoming events? Then you will need a calendar function that allows people to select upcoming events and register online for them. Are you selling something on your site? Then you are going to need a shopping cart system. Do you want to provide online assistance? You are going to need a chat function. Don’t know what features you might want to include? Take a look at your competitors’ websites. We can provide you with plenty of ideas once we have an idea of what direction you might like to go in.
6. Know who your competitors are.
It is important to know who your top competitors are and what their websites have to offer. We want to make sure that your site is up to the industry standards. If they have neat features on their site that are useful then it is a good idea to include similar features in your website design. Our goal is to make your site look better and function as well as your competitors to help your business get ahead.
7. Know your budget range.
With websites, you get what you pay for. Since all of our design and development work is done in-house and not outsourced for pennies on the dollar to foreign countries, your site is going to cost a bit more than a company promising a fully functional website for $99. The benefit of an in house team is that you get to work directly with a project manager who serves as a liaison between the designer and developer in our office. This means weekly meetings throughout the design process, in-house training sessions on how to update your user-friendly website and a team that is available to fix any problems you may experience in the future.
Here at Webspec, we are extremely budget focused. In our initial proposal, we present you with the basics to create the website you are after while sticking to your budget. We then present ideas that you might want to add on to the basic site package or potentially explore further down the road, ideas that you probably didn’t even know existed. With online marketing being the new frontier of business, putting a good deal of your marketing budget towards your website is an excellent use of funds. Our goal is to provide value to your company through a website. With a website and marketing campaign to get the word out, your site will pay for itself.
Put in the work now, save time later on.
Though these steps may seem a little time consuming, they will save you time later on and move you down the road of building a brand new website sooner rather than later. Going through these steps will also help you better be able to communicate what you want your website to look like and how you want it to function; this strong communication will also make your relationship with your project manager even more beneficial in the long run.
When you’re ready to get started with your new website, think about these steps and then give us a call. We are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to build your strongest marketing tool.
