Once you've decided
that you want to go ahead with your web site you
need to communicate to us how it is going to look
and what content it should contain by giving us
a site specification. There's a
sample specification here that you can
print out or cut and
paste into your word processor (or an email) to
get you started.
There's no hard and fast rules about how much,
or how little, guidance you need to provide -
we've even built sites for people who've said
"just do it OK". But to ensure that your
site is exactly what you want you'll have to put
a little work into the specification.
When you've written the specification you can
send it to us via Email, post, or even by
telephone. Most
clients send it via Email as this is fastest.
You can send any pictures as attachments. |
Everything else
stems from this decision!
You should try to clearly state, in only one or
two sentences, what you want the web site to do.
This is sometimes called a "mission statement".
Here's an example: Suppose you run a
bicycle shop but not many people know that
you're the only place in town that also rents
bikes out. You've noticed that you are
missing out on a lot of business so would like
people from your town who search the web to find your rental
service.
Here's the mission
statement:
"I want everybody in Melton Mowbray to find my
site when they search for bicycle hire
operators. I want to emphasise the vast
range of bikes I rent out and the reasonable
prices I charge." |
Starter sites come
complete with a free .co.uk domain name
(you can have a .com for a small extra
charge) and pro
sites give you the choice of .co.uk or .com.
You should choose .com if your business is truly
international and .co.uk if nearly all of your
business comes from Great Britain as you'll then
do better in searches on google.co.uk.
If you already have a domain name that's fine
too.
Go to a site like
www.checkdomain.com to see if your choice is
available.
A big tip when choosing your domain is to try to
incorporate the words that most users will
search for into the domain name. Getting a
first page on Google for your chosen words is
very likely if you do this.
For example:
if your business was selling used cars in
Blackburn UK a great name would be BlackburnUsedCars.co.uk, a really bad name would
be BargainCars.co.uk even if that was the name
of your company!
Anybody now typing
Blackburn Used Cars into Google.co.uk (or
even Used Cars in Blackburn) will
almost surely be yours! |
| Check how many free
Email addresses come with your plan. It is
normal to use your own name for your Email
address. For example, if your site was
called www.laxeydogwalking.co.uk and your
name was Mike Smith, your Email address
would normally be one of the following three:-
mike@www.laxeydogwalking.co.uk
mikesmith@laxeydogwalking.co.uk
msmith@laxeydogwalking.co.uk
There's no concept of capital and small letters
in an Email address. |
All of our sites are
created from scratch, we never user pre-defined
templates so your site will be unique and can
look any way you want it to. You may find
this quite amazing considering how little we
charge.
Given that you can
have absolutely any design you want the best way
to discover what you want is to spend a few hours looking around the
Internet at other people's sites. You'll
then have a good idea about what you like, and
what you don't.
More importantly, you'll
be able to communicate your likes and dislikes
to us much more clearly if you can show us a few
sites you really like. We'll then
know the type of colours, look,feel and
writing style that you find attractive.
This step is important because web design is
subjective and we all have different tastes. |
A very simple site might have a home page,
an about us page, a contact page
and an enquiry or order page.
The master tip here is to learn from others.
Visit a few sites in similar business areas to
your own and look at the pages they
contain. Try to make sure that the pages
use the type of names web surfers are used to. For
example: Most sites on the web have a contact
page with an address, email address and
telephone number. If your site doesn't
have one your visitors may become frustrated
when they can't find it. |
The web is a visual
media so you really ought to have some
photos or other pictures on your site.
Ideally there should be a relevant photo or
picture on every
page.
Perhaps you have some photos or drawings
already? If so you can either scan them
yourself and email them across, or send them to
us for scanning.
Alternatively we can select
some stock photographs for you (your package
includes some), or you can choose your own, from over a
million, by
clicking here. Once you've chosen
let us know the ID numbers of the photographs or
illustrations and we'll buy them. |
Ideally you should provide
precisely the text you want included on each
page.
If you are not good with words or grammar don't
worry. We'll automatically correct any
spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors from
the text you provide - even if it means
extensively re-writing your text.
If you don't want to write your own copy just
give us an idea of the concept you want to get
across and we'll write it all for you. You
can even do this by telephone if you find it
easier to explain rather than write it all down. |
That's it, you're done. Now send the
specification to us via Email and we'll get on
with building your site.
To find out what happens next view
the approval
process.
|
