Towards Building a Better Business Website
To move your business online you will need a website and a name to go with it. The order in which people approach these two requirements varies from person to person. Some get the domain name registered first and then go about designing the site while others like to design and develop the website before christening it.
The design and development of a website for an online business should be carried out carefully. At this stage, one can either apply the “do it yourself” strategy or hire a professional to get the job done. Small business owners with some amount of exposure or background in designing might be tempted to develop the site themselves. This is an excellent option as far as optimization of financial resources is concerned. However, I would suggest going in for the second option. The two main reasons being
- to give a professional look to the website.
- to free up the business owner’s time for other important aspects like advertising and search engine marketing.
Whether you decide to do it yourself or bring in professional help for your website, it is best to have handy a “wish list”. Put down on paper what your primary goals are in setting up the website and what you want to achieve through the site. List out the features you want to be included on the site. An understanding of the total number of web pages and the functionalities required in each page will help decide whether the site should be static or dynamic. Also, you should have a clear cut idea of the flow of links within the site. You can scribble a rough layout of your site with a list of things you want displayed on each page. It is better to draw a site map (even if it is a crude one) to make sure the designer/developer understands your requirements unambiguously. These inputs will be the raw data based on which the designer builds the website. If this foundation is sound, what is built above it will be strong.