Planning for a Website

Every Great Website Starts With an Even Greater Plan…

Building a website for your small business is a significant capital and marketing investment. Like any investment, a lot of thought and careful planning must go into not only your, but your audience’s expectations and needs.

The challenge in launching a website is not only in the design and development, but in identifying the role you want your website to take in your small business. Once expectations and functionality are determined, we’ll know exactly which highly practical tools and design features offer the best solution.

No one knows your business and customers better than you do. So here are a few questions to consider as we define your site’s purpose and post launch objectives:

What do I want my company website to do?

Web development technology and tools make it easier than ever to automate several of your sales and marketing operations. Our goal is to help you take full advantage of the web technology available today.

We encourage you to visit your competition’s websites and other websites you like. Jot down the features that you find most useful because chances are your customers will too. Building these tools into your small business website will increase visitor satisfaction and increase sales. Not to mention, streamline your marketing and communication processes.

From simple brochure-style websites to grand scale e-commerce sites with inventory management capabilities, functionality is key to getting the results you expect from your website. We’re web development pros and can include one or a combination of the following functions:

E-Commerce and Shopping Carts

We’ll help you choose the right online catalog and check out process for your small business based on the number of products you sell and how you accept payment.

Membership/Directory Websites

Protecting member information is critical for many community organization websites. We use comprehensive security features to build password-protected member directories. Access can be granted via a group password or individually assigned logins.

Email Newsletters and Communications

Email is an important communication tool for small businesses and the right program can provide analytics on who opens your email, clicks to your website, forwards your message and much, much more. We’ll even make sure your messages are compliant with CAN-SPAM laws.

How frequently you send and the number of people on your mailing list can help us choose the best email communication program for your business. Email marketing programs are generally priced based on usage and features.

Calendar

Online calendars effectively keep people informed of your upcoming events. We can customize your calendar based on how many events you post, who will monitor it and how frequently. Most importantly, we’ll make sure that it’s easy to use and update. No HTML or FTP knowledge required!

Photo Galleries

Sometimes product images will fit on a single page. But in other cases a searchable database-driven gallery is a better solution. Online services such as Flickr or Picasa are a viable option or we can customize a portfolio or catalog solution to your specifications. We can even handle the photography.

Social Media

Do you use social media platforms to reach customers and colleagues? If so, we need to include those links on your site to increase your fans, followers and connections. If not, you might consider signing up for an account given social media’s quick and effective networking capability. Plus, social media can drive traffic directly to your website.

According to a recent survey, nearly 62% of social media users visit companies or brands on social sites so social media channels are well worth considering. But social media also requires your attention to respond to the “chatter.” Otherwise, it may do more harm to your reputation than good.

Blog

There are so many benefits to blogging that it’s not surprising that more small businesses are including a blog on their websites. Blogging is a great way to improve search engine rankings because your blogs contain keywords. It also helps establish you as an authority and is an easy way to share news and events about your field.

WordPress is the most popular blog program used today. If a blog is in your company’s future, we offer WordPress customization, including theme and plugin development.

RSS Feeds

Content from your site can be syndicated through an RSS feed, or there may be a benefit to adding another site’s RSS feed to yours. Does RSS have the potential to drive traffic to your website? Read Six Apart’s article on RSS feeds to learn how they work.

Who is my target audience? Why will they visit my website?

This may seem obvious, but don’t roll your eyes just yet. Your website has the ability to perform many roles and therefore may have more target audiences than you think. The Internet is not only a marketplace for selling services and products, but it’s also an information portal. What your target market is looking for determines the type of information your site should provide.

Studies show that if visitors don’t find what they want on your site within a few seconds, they will click elsewhere and you’ve lost an opportunity. When we know the people we’re building the site for, we can design a structure that meets their needs and establishes your small business as an authority in the field.

What are my website design likes and dislikes?

How many times have you judged a business based on the quality of their website? Probably more than you can count just like your site visitors will. Your website’s design will make the first impression for your company. Your site design should accurately reflect your business’s personality and it should appeal to your audience.

Remember, humans are visual beings and colors have the power to evoke emotions. Based on your business and your goals, we’ll help you choose a color and design scheme that conveys the message you want to send.

How will the site be updated, and how frequently?

Keeping your site up-to-date is vital to its success. We can develop a maintenance plan, where Red Letter Design will update your site for you as you request, or we can build features into your site to allow you to update the site as you desire.

How will people find your site?

Right from the beginning, we need to consider the ways we’ll make sure that people can find your great looking site that has plenty of up-to-date and useful content

Tell people about it. Let people know about your site, and let other websites know about it, too. Perhaps there is an industry association website where you could add a link to your site, or you could exchange links with one of your business associates? (Note: avoid link farms! Links to your website are only valuable when they come from trusted sources.) Links from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are also valuable.

Your website address should be prominently displayed in your marketing materials. You may want to consider creating new business cards and other business collateral. (We can help! We do print work as well.)

Play nice with the search engines. The goal of a search engine, like Google, Bing, or Yahoo, is to help people find what they’re looking for on the internet. The better those search engines understand what your site is about, the better job they can do sending traffic your way.

We follow industry best practices to clearly identify the key content of your site, helping Google and other seach engines to match your site to interested seekers.

Consider online advertising. Depending on your market, online advertising may be a good source of ready buyers to your site, or it can be a money pit, charging you significant amounts of money to send uninterested visitors to your site. Red Letter Design does not offer search engine marketing services at this time, but we can help you determine if this would be a valuable service for you to pursue.

What is your budget?

Your budget matters. If you can give us an idea of your budget, we can tailor a solution to meet that price. If we can’t build all of the features you desire within that goal, we can devise a phased development plan to get you on the web now, and to add features in the future as your finances permit.