Website Design Guide and Tips (Small Business)

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2 Toll Free: (877) Fax: (877) Website Design Guide and Tips Introduction The time taken to prepare a detailed design is well worth the effort. It can help clarify your primary goals and requirements and make the job of providing an accurate estimate for potential developers a lot quicker as well as avoid any potential miscommunication after the development process has begun. The six main benefits of developing a clear and detailed plan are: 1. To help you clarify and write down all your existing ideas in a structured way. This is a big help if you are going to develop a new website as it will help guide you and keep you focused once you get immersed in the project. 2. To give the website designers a clear idea of what you think you would like. This will allow them an opportunity to review your ideas and to add their expertise and offer their professional guidance. In addition, the designer will be able to build on your ideas with their own skill and creativity to deliver a website that is better than you imagined, while meeting and often exceeding your objectives and expectations. 3. To give our design team something concrete to price and contemplate. This will help us to see where we might be able to add value to your business via your website. More importantly it will help you to compare the prices and offerings from us so you can choose the best options and make the best-informed decisions (e.g. an existing template design versus a completely fresh creative design). 1 Web Life Productions, Inc. Web Design Guide and Tips

3 4. To help you accurately plan and budget for setup and ongoing costs. As with any project, website (and intranet) development can cost more and take longer than originally expected. You will have a more realistic expectation if you have a clear plan. 5. To help us develop your ideas into actual design specifications that will provide a blueprint for what will ultimately be delivered to you. This will help guide the whole website development process and keep it on track. 6. To empower you throughout the design process to keep a degree of control with what is going on. While we as the designer need to have freedom to do our work, you own the website. If issues or disagreements on what was quoted and what was delivered arise, you will be very pleased you had things written down clearly and we can resolve the issue in a professional manner with the least amount of confusion. Key aspects of design to consider are: Strategic: outlines the longer-term 'big picture' business aims of the site. This can include elements such as vision, mission, marketing, branding, competitors, and measurement requirements. Creative: guides how the website is going to 'WOW' its audiences. Elements can include use of imagery, design templates, style and tone of written content, and how to weave the organisation's character and story into the site. Technical: outlines the equipment and capabilities the user audience is expected to have to effectively use the website. This is easy for an intranet where you know more about how well equipped the user-group is, but may be trickier for a public audience. Elements can include Internet access and connection speed; and hardware/software factors such as monitor size, processing speed and available software. Functional: outlines what the website will deliver to visitors in terms of the 'user-experience'. Elements might include personalisation features, time-saving features and features for sharing information. It is important that non-technical staff are involved in this process so that the focus remains on the audience and not just the latest features in the world of web design that may not be relevant for certain audiences. Please visit our website for more information about our complete line of products and services. 2 Web Life Productions, Inc. Web Design Guide and Tips

4 Design Plan Questions Please complete the following questions and return to us by at so we can help you develop a comprehensive design/development plan. It will give you a good structure to start with and give us a lot of useful information to offer you an accurate estimate. For each heading please add as much relevant information as you can on your current business situation and the requirements/goals you have for your new website. 1. Company Overview (Include what your company does and what niche you fill in your market.) Company Name: Web Address: 2. Business Goals (Fill in the blanks. Use as many or as few spaces as you need.) Primary Goal Additional Goals 3. Budget (What is your budget for developing your site? Allow room for any add-on costs such as graphic design, customized e-commerce development, SSL, Hosting, SEO and other marketing costs.) 4. Target Audience (Consider age, sex, location, income, and occupation.) 6. Timeframe (Give any deadlines you need to meet.) 3 Web Life Productions, Inc. Web Design Guide and Tips

5 7. Scope of work (Specify what you are expecting us to do. For example, do you want us to provide you with: a domain name, web hosting, new logo (corporate identity package), photography, copy writing, illustrations, database development, search engine optimization etc.) 8. Design Examples (Include color, images, textual content, font size and style, general atmosphere of the website. NOTE: Please provide the web addresses [URLs] of websites that you like or that contains desired functionality or design elements.) 9. Point of Contact (Provide the name, phone number and address of one person that our web designers can approach with any questions.) 10. Web Address / Domain Name (Choose the domain name that best represents your business or business name. Remember: Your domain may be used as marketing and SEO tool as well.) 11. Company Background (Company size, history, experience, culture) 12. Please describe your products/services, uses, packaging 13. What are your unique selling points? (How you differentiate yourself from competitors) 14. What are your current sales and information delivery methods? (e.g. retail outlets, direct mail, tradeshows) 4 Web Life Productions, Inc. Web Design Guide and Tips

6 15. Website history (Relevant information if you have previously had a website, such as why you want to improve it) 16. Describe your objectives of new website (e.g. take online orders, educate potential new customers, support relationships with existing customers, reach new customers, support distributors, etc) 17. What are the key messages you want to portray on your site about you and your offerings (e.g. we are professional, we are easy to work with, we are sophisticated etc) 18. Who is your target audience? (As much demographic detail as possible such as sex, age, country, profession, recreational pursuits, income bracket, attitudes, familiarity with or knowledge about your offerings etc) 19. Please list any specific offerings, features and information to deliver to the target audiences (More specific details about what the website will deliver to meet the needs of your audiences eg. webcam photos of road conditions, exchange rate conversions etc) 20. What is your 1-2 year plan? (Short term objectives of your site, e.g. raise awareness, get you on the internet next to your competitors, boost sales, support a marketing campaign etc) 21. What is your 2-5 year plan? (Longer term objectives of your site, e.g. start selling online, target new markets, introduce new products, support distributors using a login system on your site etc) 22. Website look and feel requirements (To match your own image and your customers, e.g. simple, clear, professional, sophisticated, fun, Old fashioned, three column corporate page template, etc) 5 Web Life Productions, Inc. Web Design Guide and Tips

7 23. WOW Factor: any ideas you have to encourage or attract potential customers on your homepage (if not, don t worry! We will provide our own for your approval) 24. Please list examples of sites you like (Features or functions you would like to incorporate into your site) 25. Website features (Requirements you think you will need such as video, forum, blog, shopping cart, currency converter, application forms, website user statistics etc) 26. Main navigation titles (If you can list below what you think the main pages of your site will be, this will help our designers to understand what you prefer e.g. 'Home', 'Our History', 'Parts and Service' etc) 27. Number of web pages (Giving an approximate number of pages on your website helps our design/development team assess the size of the site and work involved) 28. Web designer preference (To fit your own approach e.g. artistic, easy going, supportive, skilled in both design and technical aspects, fast turn-around of requests, corporate feel, small business feel etc) 29. Search engine optimization and marketing (Do you want your website optimized for an ongoing search engine marketing or PPC campaign?) 30. Website management (Do you want to manage the site and update content, or do you want to have Web Life Productions, Inc. to manage your website and updates on an ongoing basis?) 31. Future business growth (Any ideas you already have about future features if you grow, such as translation, online selling etc) 6 Web Life Productions, Inc. Web Design Guide and Tips

8 32. Measurement (Do you have any idea if you would like to have an ongoing measurement of your website success such as number of visitors, online sales, calls, searches, or inquiries or brochure downloads etc.) 33. Additional features (Are there any features you would like to see built in to the site (i.e. lead generating forms, streaming video, surveys etc)? 34. Testimonial (Would you consider writing a short testimonial and allowing us to use a screen shot of your finished website that could be used on our website for promotional and marketing purposes?) Thank you for taking the time to complete this initial design/development plan. Once we receive your answers to these questions we will be back in contact with you in regards to providing a formal estimate for your project. Toll Free: (877) Fax: (877) info@weblifepro.com Follow us on Twitter: WebLifePro Like us on Facebook: WebLifePro 7 Web Life Productions, Inc. Web Design Guide and Tips

9 P.O. Box 3444 Carbondale, IL toll-free (877) web Lon Reed Owner direct (618) Contact Us For Your FREE No Obligation Website Design/Development Consultation. We Are Experienced Professionals!