Are you looking to create a website for your company or would you like to update your existing website? In this five-part blog series we’re going to give you tips on how to make your Web site design process run smoother.

Tip #1: Do your homework…

This week is all about homework. Remember that word? We all used to grunt and make faces in school when the teacher told us our homework each day, but today, doing your homework is a good thing and can save time, money, and confusion when you’re interviewing potential Web designers for your project.

Take a look through the tips below and don’t worry, you don’t have to memorize all of them. I’ve taking some of the “work” out of your homework and have developed a survey, based on the information below, for you to use as you start your next website design project.

1)   How would you like your site designed?
Would you like a site where you can make minor text and photo updates yourself or would you rather have your webmaster make website changes for you? If making your own site changes is more important to you, you might want to initially request a quote for a website with a built-in content management system (or CMS), such as Joomla, or Drupal. The advantage of this is while you might pay a little more upfront, your or someone within your company will have the ability to make minor content changes to your site on the fly instead of having to call up your webmaster. Have never heard of Joomla? Read my blog on “What is a Joomla site?”

2)   How many pages will your site contain?
Drafting a site map and having it available for your initial meetings with website designer prospects will show them how many pages you expect for them to create. Sometimes the total number of pages will factor into the price of your overall site design. So, knowing exactly how many pages your site will start with (if you are developing from scratch) or how many pages will stay, be removed, or added (if you have an existing site) will be helpful to the designer.

3)   What is the image you want your site to project? Professional, funky, unique, retro or classy? What colors would you like to use to portray the look and feel you’d like to get across?

4)   How do you want to organize your information? What is the flow of your site  going to be like and why will your customers want to visit or re-visit your site? What’s your unique selling point? The most important information within your site should be strategically placed on all your pages. Your Web designer can help make placement suggestions and strategies as long as they know what information is most important to you.

5)   Who are your competitors and what are their Web addresses? It’s helpful to know who your competitors are and what they’re doing with their sites so you can structure your site completely different (and more appealing!). Also by giving your designer your competitor sites, they can run a website grader report which can help them make important Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy suggestions during your website design process.

6)   What sites do you like? What sites have you run across where you like their design, colors, layout, the way they organized information, the slideshow they used on their homepage, etc? Knowing your likes and dislikes can help the designer save time during the website design process.

7)   Do you have any special programming needs? Do you need a shopping cart, custom contact form, the ability to make appointments online or do your customers need to log-in to view certain information? Knowing this information in the beginning will help the designer determine if they need to bring a programmer into the project or if designing your site with a CMS will suffice. Even if you do not need any special programming in the beginning of your project, but anticipate needing something down the road, you can save time and money up front.

Now-a-days, we’re all looking to save a little time. Designing a website is no exception. Download this free PDF and keep it handy as you work with your Web designer to design or redesign your website. Need a designer and not sure where to start? Give us a call! We’re happy to help you with your website needs. You can reach us at 727-452-2416 for more information or visit our website to view samples of our work or to find out more about our company.

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