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What You Can Do To Help
| Written by David A. Farrell | Published 07-05-07 - Updated 01-02-08 | Page 01 of 01 |
One of the worst things that can happen when having a website built is not liking the end product once it’s been completed. Many may find it hard to believe that this sort of thing can happen, but it actually happens quite a lot. Nearly one-third of all the websites our web design company builds are to replace previous works that clients, for one reason or another, simply did not like. And what’s even more remarkable is that in only about half of those instances was the previous web designer to blame.
Clients often admit that they had no clear idea of what they needed when they first began approaching web design companies. They knew they wanted to get on the Net, but questions like what kind of ‘face’ should my company have? How best should I express my main purpose? And what kind of people will my site most likely attract? were beyond them at the time. An important thing to remember when looking to have a site built, or a previous site redone, is that web designers do not know your business. Web designers must rely on your input in order to develop the best possible site they can for you.
Here are a few ways you can assist your web developer during the construction of your site:
1) Do your homework. Prior to making contact with a designer, take a look at your competition. Use the Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL searches to see who’s out there and what some of the best sites are doing. Do they have a lot of content (in terms of ‘copy,’ or words on the page)? Are there a lot of pages in the sites you're finding? And what are they saying? Do you think you can match their levels of expertise? And if so, how? If not, where exactly do you think you may be able to fit in? The idea is to get a feel for the water before you jump in. The more you know about your particular field or genre, the more you are likely to prepare for your designer prior to seeking one out and making contact.
2) Write a two to three page brief on who you are and why it is you want to be on the web. Include historical information, a brief description of your products or services, and the kind of people you believe need your products or services, and why it is you think your products or services can help your future site’s visitors.
If your site is not a business site, the same guidelines apply. The only difference is that you may want to spend more time discussing your purpose (reason for being) and the kind of people that may be interested in what you have to say. Ultimately, however, the more information you put down on paper about your website the better your website is going to be.
3) Understand the web design quoting system. Usually, quoting systems are based on the number of work-hours anticipated for your project, which are divided among research, design, custom elements such as flash work, contact forms, multi-media editing, etc. Beyond that, another consideration is how big the site will be and how much copy will be included in its pages. Other considerations may include photo and/or video shoots and deeper levels of page optimization.
Usually only custom web design companies will include a ‘baseline’ standard of optimization, which includes a header section in your website’s encoding that provides search engines with a title and description of your website, along with a list of keywords a limited number of search engines still consider important in understanding what your web pages are about. Deeper levels of web page optimization, however, will cost more.
4) Put together as much raw media as you can. This includes any pictures, sound recordings, videos, articles, copies of publications -whatever. And when I saw ‘raw’ I mean uncropped, uncut, and unedited. Media of any kind must always be edited by the web designer (especially imagery) in order to ‘match up’ with other elements of your site to create a consistent, balanced whole.
I cannot stress enough the importance of providing your web designer with these materials. Of course, the higher the quality and the more organized everything is the better. But I believe I speak for most custom web design companies when I say that they would all rather have a big, giant pile of anything you may have as opposed to the usual -scant emails with only a couple photos attached, alongside only a little real client conversational input.
5) Be available. A web designer should be able to get a hold of you when he or she needs to. Many web designers will dedicate a special phone line or contact point through which information can be passed to encourage the expedient development of your site. If you’re web designer does not offer some kind of direct line, ask for one. Many design companies will be more than happy to accommodate you. Your interest in working with your developer means that the project has the potential to be the very best it can be, which not only supports the success of you and your business on the Net but the success of your developer as well. Developers have a special interest in your website doing well -advertising. Being there when they need you puts a feather in both your caps.
The general rule to abide by when looking to have a website built is to be as prepared as possible prior to seeking out and contacting a web designer. Organization is the key to this preparedness and so are in-depth, detailed conversations over the phone and/or through e-mails. In the event that you are not the organizational or conversational type, there is a fallback. That would be number '4' above. Any web designer will gladly take a pile of whatever you have as opposed to very little or nothing at all. Remember: When in doubt, send a box of everything.
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