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Preparing Your Website

Web design can seem deceptively easy. It consists of a series of many simple steps in a specific sequence, and the basics are very easy to learn. (Now you know why this business niche is so crowded.) But the devil is in the details! And those details will nail you unless the process is done comprehensively.

I will ask you some challenging questions, the first of which is, "Why do you want a website?" If your best answer is, "Because my competitor has one," you may be about to spend a good chunk of your money for someone else's reasons. What are your reasons? I will help you lay out requirements that make sense for your business or organization. The other major questions are:

Who is your target audience? (and how do you know?)
What do you think they want?
What do you want your visitors' experience of your site to be? (e.g. productive; informative; exciting; mysterious; fun; uplifting)
What action(s) do you want them to take before leaving your site? (e.g. buy something; ask a question; blog or post; download a file)

At this stage in the process, clients usually sit down and get clear on how their website fits into their business purposes and objectives before proceeding. Go ahead, take your time; it'll save you headaches and many dollars later on.

You might be tempted to do your Web development in-house if your budget is tight or you already have a graphics person on staff. (And that spiffy new web-publishing software you bought for them should make it a breeze...) You will even find the going fairly easy at first, but as the inevitable technical gremlins and system incompatibilities crop up, you will find the accumulation of tiny glitches consuming a lot of time and energy. Death By A Thousand Cuts!

I am well aware of what a frustrating waste of time and money these service interruptions can be. Some of them are unavoidable due to the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of computing via the Internet, not to mention hardware failures and system hiccups, and will be a relatively consistent portion of your overhead. Comprehensive and intelligent site design, however, will minimize as many potential snags as possible. My experience is that going through all the steps without skipping any will actually cost you less and be more gentle on your nerves. Let my team do it so you can focus on what you do best.

Already Have A Website?

If you have either developed your own website or had experience with another Web service provider, you may consider hiring my team for one or more of these common reasons:

You may not have been clear enough at the outset on the purposes and objectives of your site, and therefore have no tangible way of measuring success or failure (see list of questions above);
The graphic design may be either amateurish, overdone, or self-consciously "artsy," or use (typically Flash or Java) technology inappropriately, with little consideration of how the human eye acquires and uses information;
Your existing site may have non-intuitive or no navigation aids and awkward content organization (most often due to indiscriminate use of framesets);
Someone let poor grammar and spelling slip into the content, and it's making you look unprofessional;
The interactive portion(s) of the site — contact forms, e-commerce scripts, blogs, file download areas, or search engines — may be poorly implemented;
Your designer or administrator may have offered inadequate support and communication, typically due to overwork or incomplete training;
Your site is not getting the traffic you've been led to expect (more on search-engine optimization).

WEB-it! Interactive Group has twelve years experience in the Web-production and -management business. In that time my team has fixed a number of sites. Is yours a candidate? Contact me today. The first consultation is free.

WEB-it! Interactive Group
Web Design, Production, and Management

206-890-6176
webitinteractivegroup@yahoo.com

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