404 Group

1. Who is your target market?

• Residential Customers?
• Other Businesses?
• A specific group, membership, profession, market niche etc.?

2. What is your message?

• You must have CONTENT WORTH READING
• Include Basic Info about your business
• Products and Services
• Should you include an online catalog or e-commerce site?
• Should you have an online portfolio or photo gallery of your work?
• Should it be an interactive site?
• Or is it a portal or information resource?

3. What about style and looks?

• Music – please don’t! Visitors should be given the option to turn ON music. If your site has to have sounds, they should be off by default.
• Flash – sparingly if at all, visitors don’t want to wait for graphics to download
• Color, layout, readability. Again, consider your target audience.
• Graphics and photos should be used if they enhance your message or help deliver it, not as filler.

4. What kind of navigation to use?

• Be consistent – keep your navigation the same on all pages – include the visually impaired by using descriptive text links.
• Leave breadcrumbs… let your site visitor clearly see where they are and how to get back to where they were.
• Multi-layers are Multi-confusing and many people have popups disabled. Make sure your navigation works on all major browsers.
• Footer Links are a great secondary navigation system.
• A large site needs a Site Map!

5. If you build it, will they come?

• Make sure your site is search-engine friendly – don’t spam the spiders!
• Cultivate inbound links with associates, partners, suppliers, etc.
• Have content on your site that is “linkbait” that other sites want to link to
• Consider a PayPerClick campaign to build traffic to your site
• Be sticky – remember the 5 Second Rule: That’s all the time you have to grab a visitor’s attention before they move on!

6. Will your site comply with web standards?

• Outdated code can break your web site
• Too much of a good thing – bloated code slows down your pages
• You need flexible pages, optimized graphics & photos and code that is browser friendly and cross-platform compatible - everyone has a different computer and monitor and Internet service and you want your website to look good and work properly for the majority of users.

7. Do you need a remodel or a rebuild?

• Get a professional opinion – ours is free
• If it’s an older design, you probably want to start from scratch and rebuild
• You may just need a remodel with content updates, some graphics and/ or photo optimization and search engine optimization.

8. How to choose a web designer?

• Check their portfolio and references
• If they know how to address all the issues in items 1-7 above, you’re in good hands
• They should give you a free initial consultation, a free price quote – and they should be good listeners

9. Gather your resources

• Don’t do it yourself – unless you’re a web designer!
• Pull together a list of your favorite sites, your ideas, notes, company brochures, advertising, graphics, photos, etc.
• Turn it over to the expert and focus on what you do best – running your own business

10. How much to budget?

• Get a proposal based on your requirements – it should include a clear description of the cost and list exactly what will be included in the finished project
• Some web design companies offer a canned price for a website “template” - make sure that their template fits your business, and they’re not trying to shoehorn your business into their design.

A custom design will be unique to your business and will not include unnecessary features or exclude things you’d really like to have.

Keep this in mind… your website works for you 24/7 at a cost less than an advertising campaign in the newspaper and it includes a LOT more information.