So you want a website, eh? That's not usually a question I ask, or
at least the way I ask the question. However, it's the basic premise behind many of the websites I create for people, mainly small businesses. They finally
determine they'd like a website of some kind, and I usually go through some preliminary steps with them before I even begin.
The first thing I tell them is that they're probably going to want a few pages at least. Obviously it always depends on the kind of business someone has, but
in general, there should be some standards if one is looking to advertise their business.
The main page should give the name of the business and tell what it is you do, or what you sell. The second page should go into a bit more detail on what it
is your business does, highlighting all the things that your business can address.
The third page should be some type of biography page. Many people balk at this one, but let's face the fact; if you're in business, people want to know
something about you to determine if they believe you can do the job. Anything you can give them into your background helps.
The fourth page is kind of a throwaway page, in my opinion, but it could come in handy, that being what I call a links page. This is the page where you
can link to websites that might offer general information you'd like your clients to know about; it can link to other businesses that may link back to you
(important; read this page on linking); or it can link to whatever else you might
like to link to. There may be more pages, but these are the main ones you really need to have.
One page I don't like to create, but will if asked, is a contact page. I'd rather put business contact information, in some fashion, on every single page. If
you're what we call a brick and mortar business, your address and phone number should already be on every page, as well as an email address; if you're an
online business, having email contact information in some fashion, possibly a phone number, will be important. If you're doing business, you don't want to
make people search for how to contact you.
The second thing I tell people is that they're going to have to participate in some fashion in the creation of the page. Where it becomes important is for
people to actually write something about their business, as well as write their biography. Writing about the business and themselves is critical for the
person who's creating the site, especially if the person you hire cares anything about what's known as
search engine optimization.
Basically, the person you hire is going to take your words, do some research, and try to set your site up so that the major search engines will index your
site so that, when people go to one (such as Google), your site has an opportunity to come up, and thereby helping you do business online. You need to be
able to give this person some help; otherwise, they do the writing for you, which not only may not represent you the way you want it to, but, when
someone who doesn't fully know what you do has to write up what you do, that's more time they get to charge you for. The research in finding ways to
better optimize your site can be time consuming enough; trust me on this one.
The third thing I tell people is to think about what they'd like their page to look like as it pertains to colors and font type. Most people really don't
understand this part very well, but the reality is that most people have some kind of idea of what they'd like their site to look like. You know there are
going to be words, and the site is either going to have a white background, some kind of colors, or some kind of picture, either a framed, fancy designed
picture background or something else that has a cool pattern; almost anything is possible.
The fourth thing I usually tell people is to keep the site simple, unless you're a major company, which, if you're a major company, you've already hired
someone to take care of your site. Flashy things may look nice, but unless your page gets millions of visitors or are already very well known, you're going
to turn off most people with flashy things that take away from telling people what you do. Also, there's loading time issues if there are lots of pictures or
graphics; even in today's world, more than 50% of online consumers are still on dialup. And, finally, it's hard to optimize sites with lots of flashy stuff. It
gets in the way of the message, the words, which is what search engines key on.
By the way, this doesn't mean you don't have any pictures on your site at all; it just means that, on your main page, you have few, and if people are
interested after that then you can do some things. Having pictures on your biography page is a good thing because people like to see who they might
work with; if there's multiple staff, multiple pictures work. Obviously, if you're selling products, you want to have pictures of some of your products on
your website; these will probably be other pages added to the site.
These are the essentials one should think of once they've made the decision to have a website. It's a quick start guide, but one that should help you
before you start looking for someone to create your site for you, or things you should think about before you create a site for yourself.