welsh-slate

Disclaimer before we start: everything below is my opinion. If you want to add anything

or make any comments, please Contact me.


This non-exhaustive list of aspects of Web Design of which you may have not been aware. This is to help you and your project; reducing the cost and timeline. If you have a business plan, is your web site development plan in-line?

By getting involved in your site, being prepared and being clear on what you want to achieve will help you pick the right web site solution.

The more you know up front will give you a much stronger and better design.

Use the links in the Table of Contents to navigate the content.

The Most Important Piece Of Advice: there is no such thing as a simple web site.

There is a minimum amount of work for all Web Sites, whether you are asking for 5 pages or 50 pages. The major part of the design is in the themeing, the design that runs through the Web site. Once this is sorted, adding content is generally straightforward. No two projects are the same though.

WEB SITE CONTENT

Prepare your own Web Site Content: this involves preparing at least 250 words of text per page. From a search engine perspective, the more the better.

You´re the expert on your business so, who better to write it. If you can´t, hire a copywriter. Digging out old business literature, you´ve already had printed, can also be used. Once this is completed, your copy will be revised for the following aspects:

  • In your text, you need to think about keyword density.
  • DO NOT SPAM your text with keywords, and don´t spam your Meta Tag keywords either.
  • Don't repeat words in your Meta Tag more than 5 times.
  • Anything over about 10% keyword density in your text could be considered Spamming and you could get your site black-listed by search engines. You may see this from time to time, but I don't adhere to what is termed as 'Black Hat SEO'.

WEB SITE DESIGN

My Rule: If it moves, it´s gonna cost.

Flash is nice but it costs money. If you want a Flash site, then be prepared to have your web site design cost skyrocket.

As a starting point, find some examples of sites you like. This will help tremendously with a quote. What you think might look easy generally isn´t. See my first point.

DOMAIN NAME

If you don´t have a TLD (Top Level Domain), get one now. And I mean .com and .co.uk, as an absolute minimum. Secure as many as you can in the realms of TLDs i.e. .net, .org, .tv Do some research as to what domain will suit your product or service. Check out your competitors and see what they've done, and try to do it better.

Think of the market you're targeting and get your main keywords in the domain name if you can.

If you don´t have a TLD and need advice in choosing one, this will incur cost.

If you are in any doubt, do seek advice before proceeding.

HOSTING

Don´t arrange any hosting service before talking with your designer about your site.

If you have arranged your own hosting service, make sure you know what they support. If it's cheap then don't expect to be able to run an ecommerce site using this service. I recommend talking with your designer before arranging this.

I provide hosting, if you don't have this arranged.

DESIGN IPR

All design work completed by the designer is theirs. The Web Designer holds the IPR on Web Sites, unless signed over to the Web Site Client. If you want to use any aspects of the design on your Company media then you need to seek permission and pay for this (that's if they charge - check).

SEO reporting

I make search engine friendly sites. I cannot promise that you will be on page one of Google once your site goes live, although I strive to get you as high in SERPs as possible, depending on competition. Search engine optimisation is a separate service and there are many people for which this is their core business. I suggest you take a look at this type of Company.

You may only want a web site to give you a web presence, so this section may not be so important for you. Something to consider when you're planning your site.

SEO and SEM can be expensive and the most labour intensive part of maintaining a web site. If you can't pay for this service, then educate yourself. You will need to monitor your site continually and add updated content. Search Engines like current content. You can garner the services of copy writers to do this for you if you lack time.