The purpose
of your website helps determine what to build.
Primarily
provide information: Decide upon logical groupings. Information
organization may lend itself to either a database or indexing
type of website. Additionally, the project's intended scale may hint
at whether a static set-up or dynamic database would be more appropriate.
WordPress or Other Blog formats: Blogs are a great way to have a designer help you set up and personalized a Theme design to your website. Then, you can add articles in the form of blog posts, receive comments and reply without either spending a large budget on the interactivity coding or the further intervention of a web designer. Caution: There are a lot of themes from free to paid or premium, there are many considerations before you decide what to use. We are happy to assist clients through this process - just ask.
E-commerce: Websites that need secure
transactions need a well-established,
trusted e-commerce
vendor with an easy to build-your-own database or online catalog
for secure purchases. They may provide the web space, secure portal
and software access. E-commerce may be as simple as setting up a
PayPal account (for example) and making a button or two - or having
the ability to send invoices by email.
More complicated shopping
carts may involve combining the services of a shopping cart vendor
and a processing vendor - ask lots of questions before you commit
to any e-commerce solution. If you already use Quickbooks, you may have most of what you need for online processing.
Read very carefully what services you are buying and what
you will be paying per transaction and any additional fees.
Options usually carry a monthly fee, whether you have transactions
or not, others involve initial setup fees, others only cost when
you actually process a transaction. Be aware of what you are buying
and ask if shopping carts are customizable to look like your website...
Marketing: A window into your business
that is open 24/7 to help visitors locate products and services that
you offer. You may want to provide tips or solutions to customer
problems but not offer e-commerce. This can be a reasonable first
step for small businesses.
As you build traffic to your website and
more customers know about your online offerings, you can further
develop the website and expand your purpose.
For example: This video created to promote New Zealand's Book Council - is a stop motion video - incredible skill and time went into this project - does it work as marketing? You decide. Video is a potential great marketing tool to communicate your message.
Full Credits: Agency: ColensoBBDO, Auckland
Animation: Andersen M Studio
Client: New Zealand Book Council
Know your website's
purpose, gain knowledge about your audience and their internet use,
commit to expending effort on preparation and development
of content for your website. Have a plan for how often you will add fresh content and whether you want to include social networking in the design (Twitter posts or a Blog).
When having someone design and maintain your website, your
preparation will make their task easier and most likely save you
money and time. Know your timetable - if you need a website immediately,
you may pay a premium or not get a design that has much customization.
Your website design and completion time relates
to how much preparation you have made on gathering
your content and asking good questions before signing a contract.
If you already have print marketing marterials, you have
a start on the content for your website.
Decide if you want the print media and website to have a similar
look or not. Plan to keep the content of your website current and
interesting.
Know if you want interactivity:
Interactivity may be contact forms, product quote requests,
or similar form formats or polling, mailing lists, and so on. As
you add interactivity, your website gets more complicated and the
price to create it also tends to increase. If budget is a genuine
concern for your website project, have an idea of what you really
need to have - like a phased growth format. Then, what kinds of features
you would like in the future. You may ask for a quote that indicates
the option (extra features) pricing.
Request a quote from Neal Resources:
Fill in the form for a quote
request. This won't cover
all aspects, but it will certainly help you have a good idea of what
a web designer will need to know about your plans.
As a guideline, Neal Resources offers 3 plans as a starting point - prices may vary depending upon the size and scope of the project. Click here for a sampling of the project price plans. |
