Take these 7 Steps to Save Time and Money on Your Business Website Design
By Theresa Rose
The biggest expense in most Websites developed for business is time. You’re paying your artist, your editor and your developer for their professional services. It follows, then, that the last thing you want to do is waste their time — because their time is your money.
Prepare ahead to work with your Web team. Do your homework, set out your goals, and jumpstart with a process that works best for you. Here’s how:
- Focus on your specialty. There should be no confusion about what you do and what product/service you offer.
- Research the internet. Explore what your competitors are doing. You’ll get new ideas, evaluate what you like on their sites and what you don’t, and this process will help you see what works best for you.
- Evaluate your true needs. Do you need only a presentation (brochure) site or do you need a shopping cart, a blog, space for advertisers, and logins? You can get lots of bells and whistles on a site, but what do you really want and need?
- Content management. Decide if you want to manage and update your site yourself or have a webmaster take care of those things. This decision determines what code will be used to build your site.
- Gather up any existing content and images. Think through what information and images you want on your site.
- Hire professional writers and buy professional photography. When you publish on the Web, you are sending your message, your branding, and your information out to the world. This is your content, and professionals make that content work for both your customers and for search engines. They can make a big difference in your ranking as well as your online presence.
- Plan development time. Designing a website takes time. A quick turnaround is one month, but most Website creations take more time, and you’ll find that you need time. You will be gathering content, making decisions on design, production, and functionalities. Plan accordingly.
Organization and pre-planning go a long way to getting your professional design accomplished on time and within budget.