Posted by OTI Dev Team in Uncategorized on August 14, 2013 with No Comments
Getting the right web designer is an important step to having a successful online presence. It’s important to have a web designer you know you can work with – someone who can listen to your ideas and use the technology, to ensure that your new website is professional, optimised for both visitors and search engines, and delivers.
As part of the design process it’s important to consider the following:
Is it to advertise yourself your organisation or your business online or is it a more complicated site, requiring perhaps a database driven and/or e-commerce solution?
How will you handle emails, and enquiries possibly from customers you haven’t traditionally dealt with previously – some of our customers now have international clients as a result of their website!
Does the package include site optimisation and promotion? This is important to make your web presence a success
What about standards compliance? A good designer should be able to take your ideas make suggestions based on their experience, and build a compliant site. Standards compliance doesn’t mean restricting your ideas!
If you are looking at updating content regularly, a CMS site is likely to be be the best option, where you can update content in your own time at no cost. In any case your designer should provide you with an option of either doing content updates for you at a cost, or provide some training to allow you to make your own content updates .
Don’t forget to factor in ongoing costs for your website also – hosting and domain name costs are obvious, as well as any site optimisation costs. You should also allow for site reviews and upgrades to occur – usually these are recommended every 2-3 years to ensure the site remains fresh.
Flash, PHP, HTML, CSS, search engine optimisation and submission, digital photography, image and page optimisation, web hosting, domain name selection and purchasing – there is a lot to think about! A good designer should understand that all these technologies are just tools in the toolkit to allow them to combine these with your requirements, to build a site that adds value to you or your business.
As with any project it’s important to understand what finished looks like before you begin. This may represent a budget limitation, a time limit, a functionality limit or a performance limit, or any combination. What’s important though is to recognise what the consequences are on time, cost, quality and scope if your definition of done is under delivered or over delivered.
Fortunately we can steer you through all these decisions and more, so that you can be sure you get a website that achieves what you want it to achieve. If we sound like the organisation you’d like to work with, please contact us for an obligation free quote.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.