So you've finally decided to take the plunge, and get a Web site for your business or organization. Before you hire a designer for your site (be it us or someone else), you should take a few minutes and plan what you want out of your site, and what you're able to put into your site. Once you've got a clear idea about that, you'll be better able to choose the designer that best meets your needs.

1) What is the purpose of your site?

Having a Web site is great, so long as it fulfills a specific set of needs for you. You should have a clear purpose (or purposes) in mind for your Web site so you and your designed can develop a site that serves those purposes.

What's a valid purpose for a Web site? A Web site can fill many purposes. A small sampling of them includes:

• basic information about your business or organization
• business-related services (online access to inventories, make reservations and appointments online)
• business-related articles and information
• customer service
• electronic commerce (selling goods and services online)
• entertainment
• and more!

If you identify your needs, a designer can work with you to decide how to best serve those needs on your Web site.

2) What is your budget and schedule for your site?

Once you've figured out what you want your site to do, you need to figure out when you want the site to be ready, and how much you're willing to spend on it. Sites can take a day or two to complete for simple designs to many months for elaborate sites with numerous features. Costs can also range from rock bottom to top dollar.

It's tempting to find the cheapest designer and go with them, but if they can't design a site to meet your needs, you may end up wasting more money than if you went with an "overpriced" designer who can design your site. Keep in mind, though, that high rates doesn't always imply high quality, so be sure to check out the designer thoroughly before choosing one that can meet your needs at a price you can afford. (We address the issue of choosing the right designer in a separate article.)

3) How do you plan to market the site?

Once you have your Web site, how do you plan to let other people know about it? "Build it and they will come" is a good line from a great movie, but it's a poor marketing philosophy on the Web. People won't visit your site unless they know it exists!

Ideally, you should plan to use your URL (the address for your Web site) like your phone number, and publish it wherever you publish your phone number. It should go on your letterhead, business cards, brochures, advertisements, and wherever else you use your phone number. If your site will have features that will make it unique or a critical part of your organization, you should consider additional publicity (press releases, a special marketing campaign, and more.) The more you publicize your Web site, the more likely people will come visit it.

4) How will your site integrate with your other publicity?

You probably have a specific design for your brochures, stationery, etc. that uses your logo and other design elements. Your Web site should also reflect this design, so it fits in seamlessly with your other publicity elements and provides a unified image of your site. On the other hand, a new (or redesigned) Web site with a completely different design might help kick off a new look for your organization, which you later migrate to your other publicity tools.

5) How often will you update your site?

Some sites need to be updated on a daily or even hourly basis. Other sites need only minor adjustments over the course of months. You should think about what content you plan to have on your site, and how often that will be updated. A store advertising sales may require weekly updates, while an organization with a basic site may need no changes for months.

Be sure to discuss the frequency of updates for your site with your designer, especially if the responsibility for the updates will fall on them. They may be able to come up with better scheduled for updates or ways to help you make the updates yourself, giving you more freedom on the frequency of the updates desired.

6) How will you evaluate the success or failure of a site?

Once you get your site online, how will you decide that it's working? What benchmarks can you use to judge how the site meets your needs? These benchmarks will depend on what the site does: a site that does electronic commerce will be judged on the amount of sales it brings in, but a site that provides just general information might be better judged on its ability to reduce phone calls with basic inquiries, freeing your time up for other, more pressing work.

If the site is not meeting your needs, based on your benchmarks, decide if your goals are unrealistic, or if a redesigned version of the site can achieve your benchmarks. (See our separate article on the specific concerns about site redesigns.) A Web site is an ongoing investment by your organization: you usually pay a set fee per month, quarter, or year, to keep the site online. If the site can't provide the desired return on your investment, consider closing the site down and starting over.

Copyright © 1998 Jeff Foust, klx.communications. All rights reserved.

back to article list