10 things to ask yourself (and your designer) when setting up a website

Building a website can be costly and time consuming. Before you dive in, take time to plan out what you want, who you will use, how much you can afford etc. Time invested up front will reap dividends later.

10 things to ask yourself

1. What are the site’s main objectives?
2. What are my keywords - the words your customers will type into a search engine to find your site?
3. How much can I afford to spend on the site?
4. How involved do I want to be, on an ongoing basis? Do I want to update it myself? (If so, ask your designer about a content management system.)
5. What sites do I like? (Think about their content as well as their look and feel - colours used, design layout etc).
6. When do I need to get it live? Is it time critical?
7. Who are my main competitors? (Take a good look at their sites. What can you learn?)
8. Who will be my main website users? Will they be old or young? Existing or new customers? (These will all affect what content you include as well as how you design the site.)
9. Which web designer am I going to use? (Draw up a shortlist of designers - ask people you know, look at the bottom of websites you like, think about whether you want someone local to you. For each designer, check out other sites they have developed.)
10. How will I measure the site’s success? (This could be traffic to the site, sales generated, feedback from customers etc.)

10 things to ask your web designer / developer

1. Does your web designer use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), which are favoured by search engines? More or less all will these days, but it’s good to check.
2. Can the web designer give you references?
3. How long is it all going to take? The longer it takes to set up your website, the longer it is before your website starts generating business for you.
4. What do they need from you? Most web designers will ask the client to write the copy / content. If this is not your thing, consider briefing a copywriter (eg. Webb Words) - but check first they have written copy for websites before. Online copywriting is very different to writing books, brochures or takeaway leaflets.
5. What web analytics do they use? Many web designers use Google analytics for small businesses. Google analytics are free and pretty good, so this is fine, but check out how (and how often) you will get the results.
6. Do they understand search engine marketing?
7. What does the price include? Eg. How many pages? Does it include amendments to pages, once set up? Does it include any search engine marketing eg. Registering your site with certain directories? Does it include fees for images used? Does it include VAT?
8. What ongoing costs are there? Eg. Hosting, content management system licence etc.
9. Will they test the website for different browsers and platforms? eg. On mobiles, which are becoming increasingly important these days
10. Will they find the images for the site? You may want to be in control of choosing the pictures used on your site, but be warned, finding the right ones can be very time consuming.