The world of the Web Design is so complicated these days and with so many web designers offering so many options, it is increasingly difficult to truly understand what services and facilities you need for your business's website. In this article I will break down the most common elements for you to help you understand the options available and make it easier to make a decision as to what facilities and services your website requires.
How your website looks is always the first consideration before any website is designed. And before the look and colours are considered, your business requires a logo because everything should be designed around the look, feel and colours of your logo. If you already have one then that will be used by us to determine how your website will look. If you do not have one then do not worry as one can be designed for you. This will be the first design element created as everything else will revolve around the look and feel of the logo.
The static website is all those pages that tend to be fixed for long periods of time. The "about us" page for instance as well as contact details and summaries of services and products offered. These pages are what traditional websites have always had ever since businesses started getting websites of their own. A logo and a static website is often more than enough for many small businesses and this may be all that you require.
Beyond the static website you may also need:
This is for those pages that are updated regularly by you. For example, you may want your home page ot be kept fresh with special offers and the like. Also, you might want a news page to keep people updated with the latest events affecting your business.
A word of warning though. A news page on your website must be updated on a regular basis. It is always best to have no news page on your website than a page where the last news item is two years old.
Blogs and articles are so useful in engaging with your customers and also for the optimisation of your site for the search engines. Google loves lots of content and this is your opportunity to regularly add lots of relevant content which helps your business and your customers alike. This section will likely use a content management system also to allow you to keep it up to date.
If you wish to sell a number of products online, you will need an e-commerce product catalogue. This is a form of content management system that allows you to upload products, photos and update prices of all that you have for sale. It should also allow you to add and update categories and sub-categories of your products so that they can be laid out in an easy-to-find fashion for your customers. This should also come with a search facility so that your customers can look for a product by typing in certain key words.
There should also be a shopping cart associated with the product catalogue that connects directly to the major Internet payment gateways such as World Pay and Sage Pay.
These are the only aspects that your business website will require. Any other items you find when looking for a web designer are just fancy terms for the same things. Don't let the web design world try and overwhelm or confuse you. All you need to consider is: