We have put together some guidelines to help you choose what website is best for you.

We have more information on the basics of creating a website which is an overview on what goes into getting a site up and running.

SO YOU'RE A BUSINESS OWNER or organization director trying to design Web pages?
Small business? Nonprofit organization? Chamber of commerce? Christian ministry organization?
Association? You have unique needs. I'll try to guide you through the process.
When you're finished, you'll know a lot more about what goes into webpage design.

Purpose: Why Do You Want to Do This?
You will save a lot of time and money by being honest with yourself right here at the beginning.
Just why are you doing this? What do you hope to achieve? What is your purpose?

"The World Wide Web is hot. Everybody is getting a Web presence. I'd better do it, too, or be left behind."
This may represent your thinking, but you need more focus.
We want potential customers to learn about our company, and gain a favorable impression of us.
We want to develop a qualified list of prospects for our goods and services.
We want to sell products directly from our Web pages.

Begin with patience and the long-term view. Your business results from the World Wide Web may be immediate and spectacular. Then again, you may not make much of an impact right away.
Be ready to soar, but realize that some products and services don't lend themselves to this medium.
Talk to us about how similar types of businesses are using the World Wide Web.

Index Page and Site Organization

Some people call this a "home page." I like to think of it as your "storefront" on the World Wide Web marketplace. It provides an index to the set of pages which describe your business or organization.

Your web-page system will have several main sections, such as

About Your Organization. This section may include a vision or mission statement, history of your business, a philosophy of how you do business, etc. Sell the customer on why he or she should do business with you rather than with your competitor.

Product Lines. With photos and text describe the benefits to your customers of your goods and services.
You can also show features, applications, or examples. Use a major branch for each major product line.
You can also use your Web pages as a catalog, which you can update easily, inexpensively, and often.

Technical Support. Some businesses find it useful to provide technical information, specifications, frequently asked questions, parts lists and diagrams, troubleshooting decision trees, etc.
How to order. This will include a form which e-mail's your customer's information to you.

Service Section. This is free information of interest to your potential customers that'll keep them coming back to your site for updates. It might be news of your industry, of a related field, or something unique or interesting. Give some thought to what service your Web pages will provide to draw customers to your "storefront" again and again.

One of the first things we will do, is ask you what you want to display on your site.
Take a few minutes to sketch out your thoughts. This will help you be prepared to explain your concept.

Main Graphic to Highlight Your Site

Your "index" or "home" page needs a graphic to look inviting. Think about it as the sign over your storefront that beckons your customer inside.

No graphic. Just use headline text. This is the easiest way to go, but dull.

Scanned-in graphic. You may already have a company logo or an artist's drawing.
This can be scanned in and converted to a GIF image.

Scanned in photograph with type superimposed. We can scan an image for you and superimpose text
on it, or make a custom logo for you.

The best combination is a single sparkling graphic combined with text.
The overall look of your "home" page needs to be graphically balanced, pleasing, informative.
Your "index" or "home" page functions as your storefront. It needs to entice the customer in the door to look at the rest of what you have to offer.

Photos and Graphics

You'll want to illustrate your products or services to help tell your story.
Or you may want to put your whole catalog online.

Black and White. These may be a bit less expensive, and are within the range of most hand scanners
using gray-scale. Black-and-white images can easily be tinted slightly blue or brown to give an antique flavor.

Color Images. Color grabs people. Tell your story through a few pictures. Obtain professional-qualityphotos of your products locally. Then send your Web designer the photos.

Clickable thumbnail images are one compromise for a visitor to your web site. You show the picture in a thumbnail size image. If the customer is interested he or she can click on it to display the larger photo.

Keeping the size of these images down is very important so that your customer doesn't have to wait all day to be able to see them. He/She may just click to another site and be gone.

Forms to Get Orders or Customer Response

You need to connect with your customer. These are options which return information from your customer to you by e-mail.

Guestbooks. You can entice potential customers to sign your guestbook. Their answers to key questions help you qualify them as a prospect to pursue by telephone or direct mail (or e-mail, for that matter).

Requests for Information. Have a place for name, address, phone number, etc., as well as check boxes to request information on certain products or services.

Order Forms. Ideally, you take the order right on-line. Since people are still concerned with security of their credit card information on the Internet, consider using a combination of an order form and an 0800 number. Former customers could order on the basis of credit information they have previously given you.
Or you might have a page which contains an order form your customer can print out, fill out manually, and mail in with a check.

Shopping Cart Program. If you are selling a number products directly over the Internet, you probably ought to invest in "shopping cart" software, so people can put multiple items in their "cart" from any number of product pages. Upon "checkout," they have a total of their items, as well as tax (if any) and shipping charges included.

Secure Server. If you're serious about selling directly on the Internet, invest in the extra cost of putting your pages on a SSL-secure server, which encrypts the information quite well. Perception is the real issue, not stealing of information. The padlock icon is worth the extra money you'll pay.

Your choices will also include how you get the information sent to you by e-mail. This may require special programming-- that is the really tricky part.

Uploading and Testing Your Pages

Once your pages have been designed and programmed, they need to be uploaded to your Internet Service Provider's computer.

You don't need to worry about this, as we do this as part of any web development package.

There are 2 major Internet Browsers - Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape’s Navigator.
There are others, but these are the most popular, with over 98% of the browser market.
The different browsers support different technologies; pages which work beautifully on Internet Explorer may not work at all on Netscape.

We have both of the major browsers, so we test a new site to ensure everything works how it should.
In addition, we will also test a new site on different screen resolutions to make sure that your customers will see the site just as you intended them to see it, regardless of their browser or screen size.

Maintaining Your Site

Once you get up and running, you need to keep your Web-site current.
You'll need to think of how to handle:

Price changes
Product changes
Adding pages to describe other parts of your business
Updating links which have become obsolete
Updating images
Re-doing the "look" of your pages when your spouse grows tired of it.

You have choices here, too.

Have your Web designer train you or a staff member how to update files. You might want to write this ahead
of time into your agreement with your Web designer, especially if you have some computer talent within your company. With this option, you'll need to use the Web designer in the future only for major changes.

Keep your Web designer on a retainer to maintain your pages monthly or as needed. This saves you or your people from having to become experts on HTML. Your Web designer becomes part of your team without being on your payroll; hire him or her as an outside contractor.

Ignoring long-term page maintenance should never be a realistic option.

Registering and Advertising Your Site

If you build it will they come? Only if they can find you. There are several ways of ensuring potential customers find out about your web site.

Web search engines. There are half a dozen important Web search engines for the Internet: Lycos, WebCrawler, AltaVista, HotBot, Excite, and Infoseek. The most important directory by far is Yahoo.
Register your "index" page with each of these. we can do this for you.

Links from Related Pages. You may find some people in a complementary business who will agree to reciprocal links with your page. Or one-way links for a modest fee. You know your industry better than your Web designer.

Send brief "press release" announcements to services which announce "what's new" on the Internet.
You just might hit it lucky and have hundreds of people see the announcement and flock to your site.
You can send these announcements, or have your Web designer do it for you.

Print your website address or URL on all your display ads, literature, stationery, and business cards.
This will attract customers to your site to learn more about your business and your products.

So now what?

Now you know what it takes to get a website up and running. But it need not be difficult for you.
Talk to us and let us show you how we can do all the above at very affordable rates.