Hints and Tips for Your Web Presence
Why Have a Website?
A website can fulfil many purposes e.g. brand development, sales and marketing material distribution, lead generation or direct sales. Focusing on your reasons will lead to a more coherent website. Do you want your website for new and/or existing customers, to provide product support or another reason? The most important thing to remember is that unless your website is current, it's useless.
Who is Your Website For?
When deciding to have a web presence, first work out who your audience will be. The layout and design of the site will naturally follow on from this e.g. an information resource might need a search function, an A to Z Index and a functional appearance. A tradesperson may want a portfolio of work, the ability for potential customers to easily contact them and an aesthetically pleasing appearance. Think carefully about what functions your website will fulfill, and what your site will need to meet these functions.
Choosing a Domain Name
A domain name is your web address and can have a variety of endings e.g..com.
The ending or TLD (top level domain) implies your organisation size or location
to an extent. When choosing your domain, remember that it becomes part of
your branding or identity, so getting the right name is very important.
Choose names that are easy for people to remember and will fit the image
you portray and organisation purpose e.g. if you are going to trade internationally,
a .com would be more appropriate than .co.uk unless you are emphasising
the 'Britishness' of your business. For domain names, see 1&1 for the cheapest
.co.uk domains and GoDaddy
for the cheapest .com and many other domains.
Flashy Sites and Jazzy Graphics
Whilst beautifully animated sites are very appealing, they are inaccessible to a large proportion of web users. Firstly, they take a long time to load on a dial-up connection, and these users will find a quicker alternative i.e. your competitor. Secondly, a lot of internet users are using WebTV, WAP, PDAs and screenreaders to access web content. Content locked in flash and animation is a black hole to these users, as well as the search engines.
Ideas for different pages:
- Sound and video clips
- Repetoire / menu
- Event schedule / timetable
- Photographs
- Staff / member biographies
- Specialist services / requirements
- Contact details / form
- Directions & maps
- Opening hours
- Special offers
- About you / company history
- Online sales
- User manuals
- News
