Web Articles – Preparing for a new website

Written by Danny Dawson, 1st May 2006

Research your competitors

Find as much information as possible about your competitors. Look at their websites and record their strengths and weaknesses. Compare the approaches used against your objectives and consider them for your own website.

Online marketing and promotion

Plan your marketing before investing in a domain name and website. Your domain name, design and copy will effect the way your website is found by search engines.

When producing your copy also think about your keywords. Consider if there are any specific keywords you want your website to feature prominently for in search engines.

Repeating the same keywords (5 times or more) in your copy will help the search engines list your site high up in the rankings. Find which keywords people use the most by using Keyword Assistant by Yahoo Search Marketing or Google's Keyword Assistant.

Design and branding

Will your website be following any existing design or branding guidelines? Explain if your company already has a particular look in mind, or if you don't already have a logo or image to work with.

Support and maintenance

This area is mostly overlooked and can often be the most expensive.
Creative D recommend the following maintenance options.
  • Content management system
Allow a member of your staff to easily update, add and publish content without knowing HTML coding. Existing website style, layout and code do not change.
  • Pay-per-update
This option can be the cheapest if you only require small number of changes now and again. You pay for individual changes, usually by the hour.
  • Advanced maintenance
Relieve the pressure from your staff and allow Creative D do all the work on a regular basis. This includes updating text and images on existing pages and link management. You pay on a monthly basis.

Conclusion

Creative D hopes these notes will benefit you before approaching us to design your website. You'll also have a much better idea of what you're looking for and what you should expect in return.