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So you need a website? Where do you start? I highly recommend this approach.
Before starting work on any project you should always have a good plan in place if you want that project to be successful and done within the allocated time and within budget. Your web project, building a website, is no different.
Before you even approach a web designer, there are a few key decisions you can make now that will actually work effectively like a plan and help you and your designer focus on what is required, and perhaps as importantly, not focus on things that arent required but somehow often seem to creep in and take up valuable time. And as we all know - time is money. Your money!
So what should you consider and make decisions on?
What are the key pages/sections of your new website going to be? Even just identifying these can really help in starting to shape your website and provide a real sense of direction and focus.
What clues can you give your web designer regarding how you want your website to be? For your designer to build up a picture of the kind of site you want, it will be critical for you to illustrate that using anything you can - images, colours, animations, existing websites you like (or dont like...), etc. Or maybe you want to just see what designs they can generate on their own?
What are the website's objectives? To sell products/services, to inform a particular market with information, provide a community, display examples of work, etc? What 'value' will it add?
What is the timescale and budget for the complete project? This may seem obvious but it gets skimped over all too often. Set a realistic budget and timescale for the complete project. Know exactly what is included within that price. Any extra work will generate extra cost and it's always surprising just how quickly those costs mount up.
Just having all these key decisions in place right at the start will save you valuable time and money and make the project progress much more efficiently. It should never be underestimated. It will help you focus on what is important and what is not and can be applied to all website projects regardless of industry or organisation.
Good luck as always! Let me know how you get on.
Peter Simmons is editor of the DYNAMIQ EZINE. GET MAXIMUM RESULTS FROM YOUR WEBSITE! Increase your traffic, sales, profits, referrals and more... START GETTING RESULTS RIGHT NOW with our FREE WEBSITE EVALUATION at http://www.dynamiq.co.uk/ezine or email me anytime for immediate assistance peter@dynamiq.co.uk
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