This is Part I in a four-part series of articles designed to answer the question we get asked most often: How Do I Get Started on the Web?
Getting Started on the Web, Part I: MAKING A PLAN
Before you launch the ship, you must plot your course. A successful website will have you, the client, at the helm of the ship, with clear intent about what you want and where you want to go on the vast sea of the internet. There are 3 things you can do that will make the rest of the process much easier...
ONE - Clarify your goals.
The clearer you can be about what you want your website to do and be, the easier the rest of the process will be. Start by asking yourself some questions...
- What is the purpose of your website? Is it simply a virtual brochure? Are you offering information, displaying samples of your work?
- Do you care about attracting new customers through the website, or will it be a place you can send existing customers for more information?
- Do you want to attract customers from across the country, or is your business local/regional?
- Are you selling a service or a product? More than one product? Do you want to offer the products for ordering online?
- Do you want to be able to take credit card orders over the internet?
The answers to these questions will affect the decisions you make later about where to host your website, what kind of programs you need to have available, and what kind of budget you need for your internet marketing.
TWO - Research -- Surf the Web.
And while you're surfing, wear two hats: that of the small business owner who wants to build a website, and that of the average user with a dial-up modem and slow computer.
In your surf-research, you want to look for 3 things:
- What is your competition doing? This should be the first search you do. Call up a browser and go to your favorite search engine. Google is a good place to start. Type in keywords that relate to your field, and browse through the first page of results. Make note of the sites you like, and save the URL's in a list. Pay attention to what kinds of content are they displaying on their sites, and how they're displaying it.
- What website designs do you like / dislike? Pay attention to look, feel, layout, color, bells/whistles, and functionality. Again, keep a list of the specifics, and the URL's of each website that you particularly like. This list will come in handy later when talking to a designer about your likes and dislikes. It's MUCH easier to get your ideas across with examples.
- What is your average customer likely to be willing to tolerate? If you are offering a service to the elderly, for instance, a website that is busy and cluttered will be too visually confusing. And they are unlikely to have the latest, greatest and fastest computers. So waiting for those lovely flash animations and bandwidth-heavy intro's to download will only frustrate them. Are you primarily offering information? Then make it easy for your visitors to find it quick. They don't have the time to waste waiting for your site to download! However, if your market is computers, graphics, games, music or porn, then people are much more likely to be willing to wait to see what bells and whistles you have for them.
THREE - Gather Your Content.
Once you've clarified the purpose of your website, it's time to make decisions about what information you will present. Again, looking at the competition is a good way to get ideas for your own website. You may not have the content fully written yet, and that's ok. This is the time to drag out that yellow note pad and start making lists, drawing flow charts. Start at the top with your home page, which typically contains some kind of welcome message, and a brief blurb as to what the site is about. Your content list may look something like this:
- Home / Welcome
- "About Us" page - Overview
- Where we're located & map
- Bios of principles, photos?
- List of Services / Products
- Announcements page / What's New
- Sign up form, or contact form
- Member Area
- Member newsletter
- Member database search / display
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You get the idea. The more detailed you can be about what you want to present on the web, and why, the easier the actual design of the website will be.
Which segues nicely into Part II of this series: Designing a Website: More Than Just Pretty Pictures.
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