Design Your Own Website

Design your own website: practical and financial aspects of good web design.

Building a Site round the Business Model

How do you design your own website, one that's friendly to the search engines and draws in customers? Forget aesthetics and programming for the moment, and concentrate on marketing. You can achieve an effective web design only after you've finalized all other aspects: i.e. thoroughly researched your type of business, payment system and marketing strategies. Then can you:

 

• provide your conception of the site to the web designer, avoiding costly changes later.

• describe your business precisely to the graphic designer: essential if an appropriate brand image is to be created.

• suggest features from competitors' sites, which your site is to resemble but improve upon.

• divide your site into pages that individually target optimal keywords. Each page has to be designed specifically to promote those keywords — not only in meta tags, but in layout, graphics labels and page copy.

• know how much you can afford to spend on good web design to achieve your expected return on investment.

Use a Designer or Build Your Own?

HTML, and even some Javascript, is not difficult to master, but your object is not to prove your versatility, but to obtain a professional-looking site as painlessly as possible.

If yours is a Mom and Pop part-time business, then you'll very probably build your own site, employing one of the many software packages available. Or you'll think of employing a knowledgeable friend, etc.

In all other cases you'd be advised to use a professional. With the downturn in e-business, many web designers are now keen for work, adjusting their fees accordingly.

Consider these points in selecting your web designer:

• designers specialize. Choose one experienced in your field.

• scrutinize their own site. It need not be snazzy — they may be too busy to continually update their site — but it should be professional: clear message, attractive to look at, easy to navigate, quick to download, no broken links or typos.

• ask for cost estimates. Given precise requirements, the design company should be able to quote, or provide a range of costs.

• examine their portfolio and ask to see more of their work. Then contact the clients for references. Phone calls will elicit more information than emails or formal letters.

• emails and phone calls should be promptly answered. Shortcomings won't be remedied when you're a client.

• speak if possible to actual designers and programmers: they may not be good salesmen, but they should be friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. These are the folk you'll be in weekly contact with, so you need to get along with them.

investigate:

• cost of extra pages

• cost of alterations

• maintenance, if the site is hosted by them or (better) a third-party hosting company.

• copyright considerations.

• guarantees and penalty payments for delays or noncompliance.

• financial standing of design company (or guarantees are worthless).

• get your legal department to check the contract before you sign it.

Your requirements may be onerous, but a company unable to meet them won't give you much peace of mind.

Likely Costs

Sites built with 'out of the box solutions', or through 'all-in hosting solutions', are much cheaper. Otherwise, web build companies should be able to provide you with reasonable cost estimates once they have clear idea of your needs. Until that time, for the purposes of initial planning, here is a rough guide to costs:

Mom & Pop	5 pages. Credit cards taken but not processed in real time. Third-party hosting.	$1,000
Starter Site	20 page catalog. Credit cards processed in real time but no merchant account. Third-party hosting.	$3,000
Small Business	50 page catalog. Credit cards processed in real time with merchant account. No database. Third-party hosting.	$10,000
Small-Medium Business	100 page catalog. Build includes logo and individual design. Credit cards processed in real time with merchant account. Product information from database. Third-party hosting.	$30,000
Medium-Sized Business	250 page catalog. Logo and individual design. Credit cards processed on site with merchant account. Product information from database. Dedicated server or in-house hosting.	$100,000+

 

The e-book provides listings of companies that will refine these figures.

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