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Things to Consider When Developing a Website

Written by: Steven G. Atkinson

Article Overview: An Internet website is an important tool for business. It can give the casual shopper a chance to see and understand the services you provide even before they contact you. The website needs to be part of your advertising budget, since that’s what it does. It doesn’t have to cost a lot. Here are 6 things to consider when planning your website.

Things to Consider When Developing a Website

An Internet website is an important tool for a business. It gives the casual shopper a chance to see and understand the services you provide even before they contact you. The website should be considered as part of an advertising budget. That’s what it does, helps advertise your business. It doesn’t have to cost a lot.

Even if you think it’s not needed, you may be surprised. There are many customers who may consider the other guy since they have a website and you don’t.

Here are 6 things to consider when planning your website.

1) Take a trip on the Information Highway. Look at what others are doing to get an idea for your site. Determine the amount of pages that you may want. Remember that users generally do not click through more than 2 pages to find the information for which they are searching.

2) Determine the price you want to pay. The cost for development will depend on the complexity of the website as well as experience of the designer. How often will your site need updating? You want your users to come back so you don’t want a static site. The cost of updates needs to be factored into the total cost.

3) When hiring a web designer, check their references. These references should include client satisfaction and site url’s. Look at the sites they’ve worked on. Do they suit your needs? If they aren't pleasing to you, you probably don’t want them to develop yours. Also get a detail written estimate.

4) In the agreement determine who shall hold the copyright for the site. While all developers will agree that the text on your site is yours, the template they may want to keep as their own. All copyrights should be yours. Make sure you receive from them a disk with the source code for your site and an agreement that after their contract expires you can go to another developer and be able to use the same template. To protect yourself, you will want to ensure that all rights (graphics, picture, sounds etc.) are granted for your use.

5) Determine where the web site is to be hosted. Some developers also offer web hosting. You may also want to consider a hosting service or having your own web server. If you don’t own your domain name and the developer is registering for you, make sure it’s registered in your name and that you have the information (username and password) required to access the registration site to make changes as needed. When registering domain name consider registering .net and .org as well as .com.

6) Consider using a student. Many high school and college students are developing websites for personal or club use. By hiring them to do your website, you may be able to pay less and get the same results as having a professional develop it

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved

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