Hi! every one in the business at some point of time does thinks that he should have a web presence, but do not know the jargon they have to answer to a web designing firm, even deciding the web designer. They are indecisive regarding hiring a web designing firm or a freelance web designer like me, normally my experience in freelancing suggests that some of the new businesses or old ones in need of revamping their old website turn up to freelance webdesigners after receiving a big budget for their work from designing firms and they turn over to the search engines to search freelancer web designer offering same or sometimes better options than the corporates with a considerable savings of the planned budget.
I always prefer to educate the clients, because working with a wel informed client is half work done, they come with a inspiration and thought in their web design dream, which definately cannot be fitted into readymade templates. It is just like choosing a readymade shirt from a store or taking cloth and getting it stitched. In freelance web designing we even weave cloth for you depending on your taste. We are more attached to you as your workforce and hence are more than a personalised service at such a cost effective rate. Your dreams are realised with the best the present technology can, as a freelance web designers we are constantly abreast with the latest in technology.
Now to the main part of educating the potential clients, every new venture in business needs some homework to be done in form of a analysis, the same holds true for the web designing. You need to analyse preferably few things given under in chronological order:
1. Why do I need a Web Site for my business? Is It going to do any good?
A website gives your business an advantage over your competition since it goes beyond the boundaries of local marketing and traditional methods of advertising, it helps increasing your marketing profile. Thus aiding your company to grow and succeed in your market area for your products and services. Now ecommerce is on rise and many people look online for a product or service.
You should analyse your competitors around area of your business, are they having webpages, if they don't then you are the go-getter start providing a valuable service resource to existing clientele as well as target new potential customers. But if your competitors have a website , and you do not, then you are at a disadvantage since you have more work to be done rather than just putting up the site that informs, educates, and entices visitors to do business with them. You need to market it as well. Decide today that having a website is going to add to your marketing budget but generating revenue to overcome the expenses in shortest possible turn around time, since it is cheapest form of advertisement and you can keep it updated at very small cost.
2. Domain Name :
The domain name is the address of your web site on the Internet like mine is dristi.net.in. There are many free web hosting services out there offering free space along with domain name, go and search from any search engine and find they are plenty of them. But if you are in business why not have your own domain name than having a domain with free service provider name attached at the end, even most of them place an ad on your webpages.
It is always advisable to continue having a .com extension but not very common web domain names are available for booking, a short and catchy domain name which can be remembered easily are hardly leftover for .com extension, a .net or any other extension makes a better choice. Make a list of alternatives for you domain name and a right place to check its availability is http://www.whois.ws go and search what is available for you.
3. Webpage Design & Technology behind the pages:
The first and foremost job before deciding how framework of your page would be designed research some of your competitors or companies providing the similar services, this gives you an insight as to what similar business entities are doing. Then you sit down with Web Site Design, begin with the headline page - the Main Page, also referred to as Index Page. This is a main door to your business oppurtunity and it should highlight what product / services you have to offer them, explain to your visitors the advantages of doing business with you.
The main page is the gateway to your detailed pages linked with a navigation, I recommend to carry research and text writing for the following typical pages that are referenced by links on the main page.
About You : Every potential customers needs to know about your business and your history this is a right place where most of visitors come, they come to know about you. Tell the best about you, and better if you could carry testimony about your services.
Services / Products : You need to carry all your products / services on this page giving a brief possible information, each leading to a descriptive page.
Contact information : Contact information forms the vital part of your business, visitors wanting to know more about the product or even purchase outright would come to this page. The contact information can be placed on the bottom, right margin of every page or on a separate page. There should preferably be forms to carry out such information transmission or even a online chat from support team. Some of the visitors will definately not open up email client to call you up.
Frequently Asked Questions: If you are in business or service provider and expect that lot of visitors ask you queestions about what you have to provide, then this is where you would place answers to the most common questions so they can save time. Everything that you think is useful to your customers can be placed here.
Press Releases and News: Your customers are really interested as to what is going on in your company. This page alone can keep your site popular and frequently visited.
Thus by the end you should have a work flow of your webpage design, and even can work out roughly as to how many pages would be required to have a start, since web is a place where you would be expanding with your business.
4. Web Hosting Space:
Again there are free hosting service providers, but in real world there is nothing like a free lunch. Search the net again for hosting service providers around you compare what they have to offfer ad what price. Most hosting companies provide a range of services, starting with low-budget packages and moving up to more advanced, expensive features. Pick a hosting plan, that provides enough disk space for your site at a price within your budget. Also watch out for the bandwidth transfer you are allowed. Bandwidth is the measurement of the amount of data transmitted over an internet connection in a given time. Most web hosts measure bandwidth by the month and set limits accordingly. As per experience for a new web page having less than 50 pages, considering monthly traffic rate of 5000 viewers 1 GB Bandwidth would be sufficient. Your web designer could also help you in deciding this, but it is always advisable that you should know the rates and features like Mail options, site statistics, technology support etc...
5. Web Designer:
This forms again the vital part if you are not going to do the job by itself, and believe me let this work be done by a specialist. A freelance webdesigner around you or any where in world would be my preference of choice as I am amongst one of the many offering you a personalised out of the box web designs that would be built upon your ideas and not what i think, we would add up to get you the best possible that would suit your needs and not thrust upon what we know, or I have hundreds of templates to choose from. Even a web designing companies has always been a choice but before you make up vital decisions compare the cost, ask them their earlier clients and if possible contact them and get to know their views. Web design decision should always be yours dictate what you want in clear terms and let there be a MOU or a scope of work defined, this could help you later on.
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