Planning Your Site

Whether you are looking to develop an existing business, or for new ideas to beat the recession and improve your bottom line, your website is often one of the first impressions a prospective customer receives of your organisation and can make all the difference in whether they do business with you or not.
A successful website is a combination of several factors including:

• careful planning
• ease of navigation
• accessible information 
• visual design
• promotion

Planning your site

It is essential from the outset that you clearly identify what the purpose of your site is.

Typical reasons why businesses develop websites include:

• building brand awareness - a well-designed website is a great way of instilling confidence, and looking bigger than you are!
• selling products
• improving customer service by providing answers to frequently asked questions on your Web site
• 24 hour availability of information to expand your market, nationally, or
  even internationally
• providing personalized information to individual customers based on their
  preferences. No other medium allows you to do this so cheaply
• giving instant gratification by offering free samples for download
• gathering information about your customer at minimal cost - using online
  surveys or simply analyzing the traffic information collected by your Web
  server can provide valuable information

Spend some time researching the competition and make a note of any websites which you like or, equally, dislike!

Accessing the Information

An average person spends just a few seconds on a website assessing if they want to explore further.  A study conducted by Akamai found that if your website takes longer than four seconds to fully load, 33%, or one-third, of all visitors will abandon your site.

The technology we use separates the text from the layout which means fast loading sites.

It is also essential that they can quickly and easily access the required information by intuitive navigation and intelligent use of graphics and layout to point them in the right direction.

In the United Kingdom there are also legal issues to consider in the design of the website. You have to ensure that you comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA).

Content and audience

Ensure that you know the audience you are trying to reach. Try and understand what they will want when they come to your site, how you can initially attract them, what will encourage them to return, and what type of computer and connection speed they are likely to have.

Planning techniques

It is a good idea to create a diagram that shows the structure and logic behind the content, presentation and navigation you propose to use.

Putting it all together

We take time to understand your business and aspirations and provide a short questionnaire which usually elicits some interesting answers.

From there, we develop your personal plan to develop the website and suggest ways in which to maximise your ROI.

Your website should be an integrated part of your overall business strategy.  We understand this and can help and advise on other key areas such as:

• logo design
• brochures
• seo
• newsletters and e-campaigns