successful website design
DESCRIPTION
What Every Business Owner Needs to Know about Participating in the Process, Working with a Designer and Producing a Site that Works for Your BusinessTRANSCRIPT
Small Business Website Design
What Every Business Owner Needs to Know about Participating in the Process, Working with a Designer and Producing a Site that Works for Your Business
What we’ll cover
Planning the site structure & content
Types of sites Budget Domain names Hosting Finding a
designer/developer Contracts
Design & development process
Pre-launch check Maintenance/
updates Marketing
Planning
The more you have planned ahead of time, the better!
Things you should know: Your business model Who are your customers or Audience? What do you want your customers to do?
• Call to action How will this site solve your customers’
problem?
Who is your Audience?
Site Types
Brochure - Set it and Forget it, (but don’t) Basic static pages, simple form
Informational - Regularly Updated Needs a database and/or blogging capability
E-commerce (Can be used for services, too)
Requires shopping cart (customer, order and product information storage and retrieval)
Planning
Things you should have an idea about: Branding
• visual interface to ‘set tone/expectations’, based on your audience and corporate culture
• Logo, Colors, Look and Feel• Focus on good design, not clutter
Content (Message or ‘Pitch’)• Written copy (Optimized for Search Engines,
has keywords)• Product photos or other images• Video or Audio
Planning
Functionality Forms (registration, mailing
list, contact us) Database of customers Shopping cart or way
for customers to pay you
Content Management System (CMS)
Planning
Structure Flow chart (your
developer can/should assist with this)
• How many pages or ‘screens’
• What links to what• How pages are
categorized (Do you sort by color or style?)
MORE Planning!
Examples Competition What you love (functionality, color, style, etc.) What you hate
What you NEED now, what would be nice later Sites can be built in stages, as long as it’s planned for
Questionnaire is a good place to start Whew! Now that all the planning is done….
How Much Will This Cost?
How much do you project making? 10-20% of what you will make in the first year
is a good baseline
How much can you do yourself? Writing, photography etc. What is your time worth?
It Depends…. Website is an ongoing
investment “Average” small business should
expect low to mid 4 figures.
How Much Will This Cost?
What type of site do you need? Blog (minimal design capability) = Free
(remember your time…) Brochure = $2500-$3500 (Estimated labor
20 to 60 hours) Infomational or E-Commerce = $3500-
$7500++ Maintenance and marketing are key to
success and not included in these estimates!
Domains & Hosting
Domain - $10 year Your site address: www.greatsite.com Leased not owned! If you fail to stay current
on payment, you will LOSE the rights to lease the domain.
Hosting - $120+ year The server where your actual files live Hosting packages normally include a limited
# of email addresses that can be setup YOU MUST PAY YOUR OWN BILL &
KEEP TRACK OF THE LOGIN INFORMATION! Use the spreadsheet
Finding a Designer/Developer
Not all designers know how to code, not all developers know how to design $Designer/developer, small company, freelance $$-$$$Advertising/Design firm
• Designer, developer, writer, photographer, ad placement Ask your friends & family
(If you have a friend actually do the site, do you care about deadlines and quality? Professionals are much more accountable.)
Who developed the sites in your industry that you admire? Look for functionality, not ‘Flash Bang’
Sortfolio.com, LinkedIn, Google
Finding a Designer/Developer
Do they have the skill set you need? Don’t be shy about asking questions
• Be cautious about FLASH Have they made sites that work the way you
want yours to work? ALWAYS –
Check the designers’ site (broken links or ‘coming soon’ pages are a RED FLAG)
Check their clients’ sites and get references Get more than one bid
• (Compare by services offered, not just price. Lowest is often more expensive in long run)
The Proposal & Contract
Don’t leave home without it Protects the owner and designer Defines the scope of work Define WHO is responsible for
WHAT• Who is providing content
Deadlines go both ways Who “owns” what at the end
• Content, artwork, code Payment structure
• Typically 33% or 50% up front Is maintenance covered?
• Negotiate! Can you get out?
The Proposal & Contract
What can raise the cost Revisions, additions,
changes• Remember all that
planning? Scope Creep
The Process Yay! We’re finally creating something!
You’ve planned, now designer does discovery Share all of your
planning Be prepared for more
questions!
Wireframes Structure first, to include
all content and plan layout
The Process
Mock-ups Picture of the home and
possibly additional page May have more than
one choice• Now you can see
which shade of purple works best
Now is the time to change your mind and revise!
The Process
Stay Flexible Not everything that was
planned for can happen exactly
Content and images are never exactly the same
The Process
Remember – Sites aren’t magazines You don’t control how
people see your site. Keep the design flexible
and user friendly Talk about the site being
“responsive” with your designer
The Process
Development The coding that actually creates the site Includes functionality that makes the site ‘go’ and can
include Galleries, Slide Shows, Email forms, Shopping Carts, Blog installations . . .
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11"> <title>Designing Your Site, Things Every Business Owner Should Know</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.9.2" /> <!-- leave this for stats please --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.beckydavisdesign.com/seminar/wp-content/themes/BDD_Su/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://www.beckydavisdesign.com/seminar/feed/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="http://www.beckydavisdesign.com/seminar/feed/rss/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="http://www.beckydavisdesign.com/seminar/feed/atom/" />
<link rel="pingback" href="http://www.beckydavisdesign.com/seminar/xmlrpc.php" />
The Process
Each stage needs YOUR approval Layout, design, development, launch Delays in content delivery, approval and
payment schedule all directly affect your deadline
Design changes or added functionality requests during development will be extra $$
Pre-launch Check
Use more than one tester Preferably someone who has not seen the site before
Does every link work? Do the forms work? Does the shopping cart work? Does it pass the Mom test? Test in Major Browsers: Explorer, Firefox,
Chrome, Opera (both on PC and Mac) AND as many devices as you can find
Designer should do, but you should too!
Maintenance & Updates
You planned for this, right? Monthly fee? CMS training? Publishing schedule for blog or events? Updating products or inventory?
You’re NEVER done. Relevant and current content wins in search
Marketing
It’s a live site!! Now, how do you drive traffic to it?
Marketing Social Media (easier for some business types
than others)• Facebook fan page• Your LinkedIn Profile• Twitter
Email marketing• MailChimp• Constant Contact• AWeber• Active Campaign
Printed material• Your Email Address should be [email protected]
NOT gmail, and NOT aol. (Support your domain!)
Marketing
Nothing replaces real face to face networking!
Advertising• Adwords• pay-per-click• Print, radio• TV advertising
Part of the planning Part of the budget
Contact Information
Becky Davis [email protected] 773-809-5640
These slides and MORE! http://beckydavisdesign.com/seminar-
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