Building a Website For Your Business- 11 Things Yo -

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For a lot of companies,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], deciding to build a website for their business raises a lot of questions and introduces a range of new terminology and buzz words.
We've put this article together to act as an initial guide for companies and individuals getting started with the web site development.
1. Purpose of the website
What is the target audience of your website? In most cases this would be your existing and potential customers. Some websites are merely brochure sites to showcase a company's product range. The website's focus could well be to promote a professional image for the company as part of an ongoing sales process.
The goal of the majority of websites is to generate leads and ultimately new business.
Question to ask yourself? What do I want to gain for my business from this website?
2. Layout
The layout of the website is the position of menus,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], text and images.
A lot of websites will have a home page layout which is specifically designed to give an introduction to the rest of the site. It is good design practice to limit the length of the home page to one screen so that the entire page can be viewed without scrolling.
The additional pages will then take a slightly different form to allow for unlimited page length.
Look at some websites of your competitors or companies in a similar business in other countries to get ideas for the layout of your new site.
3. Content
In a website development project, the content (text and images) for the website is quite often the last thing to be put in place. Website content can be easily updated and added to but it is important to spend time getting it right from the start.
Consider your target customers when writing your website content. Put yourself in your customer's shoes try to imagine what they would enter into a search engine when looking for your business. For example,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], if you provide web development services in Waterford, use this sentence in your website content.
Images for the site are also extremely important. Amateur images can bring down the entire look of the site. Use stock photo libraries such as iStockPhoto to source images relevant to your business.
4. Content Management Systems
A lot of websites are built using content management systems. The job of the content management system is to dynamically create the pages and content for the website based on the content created in the system. Content management systems allow non-technical member of your company to update and maintain the website without having to learn HTML and CSS.
Examples of content management systems are Typo3, Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress.
Ask your web developer whether you will have the ability to update the website yourself and whether training on this system is included in the price.
5. Search engines
When I meet prospective clients one of the first things they say to me is that they want to be the first link on Google when people search for their product or service.
In a lot of cases achieving this goal can often be more time consuming and costly then the initial development of the website. Convincing Google that your website is the most relevant website to list when a certain search is performed can be a difficult task. In the short term,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], look at paid advertising systems such as Google AdWords. Monitor what keywords people are using to find your site and then use this information to perform keyword optimization. Depending on your market, it may be necessary to work with an SEO professional to improve your ranking on search engines.
6. Reporting
It's very important to find out on a weekly basis how many people visited your site and where they came from (i.e. Did they find you on a search engine? Where they referred from another site?).
There are a range of excellent reporting tools available on the internet. Google provide a free service called Google analytics which we use for our customers.
7. Technology
The technology used to create your site is important. Avoid websites heavily based on tables as this can slow the page load time down. Ask your developer if they use CSS or table based layout methods.
If you are looking for some moving images etc. on your site your web developer may need to use Adobe Flash. Flash is not supported on devices such as the iPhone or iPad. If these devices are important to you, ask your developer to either avoid their use or provide alternative content for these devices such as a static image. A lot of the techniques performed by flash can be replicated using javascript libraries such as jQuery.
8. Hosting
You website will need to be hosted in order for it to be always available on the internet. Most web developers will also offer a hosting service for a small annual fee.
Backup is also important when considering hosting and is not always provided as standard. Ask your web developer whether your website is backed up regularly or not.
The final thing to consider with hosting is the location of the hosting server. For example if your website is targeted at the Irish market, your website should be located in Ireland. Google and other search engines take this into consideration when returning results.
9. Compatibility
There are a lot of differences between the way certain web browsers display a web page. Internet explorer (the most common web browser) and Firefox (the second most common browser) can display the same web page very differently. Internet explorer 6 is notoriously difficult to work with at times and is gradually being no longer supported by the likes of Google.
Ask your web developer to ensure cross browser compatibility when developing your website.
10. Domain names
Your website will require a domain name e.g. yourcompany.com. This domain name will need to be registered in your business name and renewed each year, unless you purchase a number of years in advance.
If your business is based in Ireland,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], you can qualify for a .ie domain. These are slightly more expensive and you will need some proof of claim such as a registered business name.
Discuss this with your web developer, they will often look after this as part of the service.
11. Cost
The cost of a website should cover the following:
Initial development of the website
Training on any content management system used
Ongoing updates and maintenance if necessary.
Annual hosting
Daily backups
Domain name renewal.
We hope you find this guide useful, and remember,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], nothing is set in stone on a website, if you need to make changes the web site design should allow this without costing you the earth.

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