This is a page about the things you should think about when starting a website, based on our own extensive research. This will help you decide whether our web design service is right for you, based on the services we offer.

Things to think about before you contact a web designer

There are three things you should think about before you even contact a designer: the number and content of each page and how they link; the text and the pictures you want on each page; and the overall look of the site.

The first thing you want to think about is what the website is intended to tell people about. It sounds obvious, but you need to think about your target web surfers and what they will be looking for. It’s usually sensible to think of some major headings for your website that will probably translate into drop down menu headings. A fairly standard range of headings are “Home”, “Services” or “About Us”, “Prices” and “Contact”. The “Services” heading might then produce a drop down menu when clicked telling one about particular services. Decide how many pages you will have, and how they will be linked. It may be a good idea to have links in the text as well. Decide if you want to link to any other websites.

The second thing to do is to write your text and find your pictures. Do bear in mind that most text and nearly all pictures on the web are copyrighted. Sadly, this means that you can’t just grab pictures off Google Images for your site – you must either take them yourself or hire a photographer. It’s also worth bearing in mind that legally, you must not falsely advertise in your pictures. This means that if you’re advertising your baking skills, and you want to use a picture of some brownies, they must be brownies you yourself have baked, otherwise you are misleading potential clients. You can, however, buy stock photos as long as they do not advertise your service. A stock photo is a photo that someone else has taken for other people to use; some are free for personal use, but most charge you a fee for commercial use (using an image on a website from which you sell anything counts as commercial use). These can be obtained from certain websites, but please do make sure they are stock. An example of acceptable use of a stock photo would be a picture of someone at a computer for a website advertising web design, as it is clear that the photo would not lead the user to any beliefs about the services offered; it’s just for decoration. You can also use cartoons and clip art stock as long as you abide by the copyright rules of the artist or photographer.

When you write your text, try and choose a couple of key phrases per page, and use them a few times near the beginning. This will help your website in the search engines. Don’t repeat them so often that it sounds unnatural though – this is more likely to harm than benefit your site. More information about search engines and your website may be found here.

Now it is time to think about the design of the website. What kind of “look” do you want? A website advertising a tour of a historic building may want a more rustic look, whereas a website advertising computer software or services may well want a modern, sleek look. It is worth remembering that a website is not like a word document. You may make it look lovely on your screen, but it must look good on everyone’s screen, and you must remember that some people may be using unusual devices such as a speech reader to view your website. With this in mind, you must choose between a “fixed” and a “fluid” layout. A fixed layout has a certain width which never changes. If a user views it on a screen smaller than this width, they have to scroll horizontally. If a user views it on a much larger screen, it may be that there is a lot of empty space on either side of the active area. However, this kind of layout gives the designer more control, and may create uniformity in user experience. A fluid layout stretches and shrinks horizontally to fit the window of the user. This website you are now on uses a fluid layout. Fluid layouts are more difficult for the designer to get to look right on every screen, but may look more impressive in the long run. It’s a matter of personal taste. Please bear in mind that for a fluid layout, horizontal menu bars may be difficult or impossible, depending on what you would like.

Once you have a vague idea about these three main areas, it’s time to find yourself a designer. It’s OK if you’re not sure about exactly the kind of look you want – we can help you with that. But it’s important that you have your text written and your pictures taken, as the website really cannot get off the ground without that.

What we, the designers, can do for you:

We will have an initial consultation with you, via phone, email or in person (depending on your location) to discuss your needs for the website. If you decide that you wish to employ our services, we can agree on a price, and then we require a 20% deposit. This is refundable if we cancel the project, but non-refundable if you cancel it. See our prices page for more details.

We then go away and do three designs based on what you asked us for. You can see the kind of design we might do for you in this sample.You then pick one – we can do minor adjustments, but as design is time consuming, we sadly must charge more for large changes. When you are happy, we will incorporate your text and pictures into the design. We optimise every picture, making sure the site loads quickly, and we can also add a generic terms and conditions/privacy page, which you may need to add to, depending on the services you provide.

We can also put your website on the internet for you – see below for details of the external costs.

Web hosting and Web domain name

Aside from the design, every website needs a name and a place to be hosted. The name you will be familiar with – it will be something like www.mywebsite.co.uk. When you have a name in mind, you have to check whether it’s available, and if so, you can register it for a period of time (usually a year or two). When the registration period is about to end, you will probably want to renew it. There are various domain name registrars, but it’s probably best to get one that is based in the country you’re in, purely because it makes it much simpler should there be any dispute if you’re both bound by the same laws. Registering a domain name can cost between £5 and £40 a year, depending on who you choose, so shop around! Alternatively, we can suggest a domain name registrar for you.

A website also needs a host. When you type in the address of a website, what you’re really doing is sending a message to a specific computer, requesting that webpage. This computer then sends the webpage through to your computer, so that you can view it. You CAN host your website yourself, but you will need a computer that is connected 24 hours a day to the internet, as if that connection is broken, no one can access your website. There are also costs involved in doing this – you often need a business phone line, for example. All in all, it’s probably cheaper to use an external web host service. Again, there are many of these, and they usually cost between £50 and £150 a year. This is one area where it’s really important to read the small print and check exactly what you’re getting.

Your host is also usually the company who is responsible for your site specific email address, should you want one. If you want an email address like me@mywebsite.co.uk, you should make sure the host offers this.

Sisman Web Design unfortunately does not offer name registration or website hosting itself, but we can help you find a registrar and a host that are right for you. We have experience of finding both, and can tell you what specifications to look for. We will set up your email address for you, through the hosting company, and help you make your new email address work with an email program such as Outlook Express. We don’t charge any extra for finding a name registrar and a website host, though you will have to pay them.

Search Engine Optimisation

You may think that when you search Google, or a similar search engine, you are searching a pool containing every website on the internet – but this is not the case! Usually it takes Google quite a while to find and “crawl” a new website. Crawling is a term for scanning with a sort of automated web user, commonly called a “bot” that tells a search engine exactly what is on your page. You can submit your page to the search engines, but it can take them a while to index (crawl) your page, even so. There are a few things that can be done to speed this process up, however:

• The problem: All websites are written in a coding language, usually a version of HTML. If the language has errors or problems, even if they don’t affect a human user, this may not help the bot crawl effectively.
  What we do: Sisman web design will always check the code they use for your website and make sure it’s error-free.
• The problem: Most bots work by weaving their way from other websites. But if there’s no link from any other websites to your site, then the bots might be much slower to find your site. Basically, you need a link from another website to your site, as many as possible. This is relevant even after the search engines have found your site as more links mean a higher listing in the search results.
  What we do: Sisman Web Design will always link to your site from this one, but we regret that further link building is up to you, as you know best the sites that are relevant to your website. We can give you advice on this, however.
• The problem: One thing search engines really look at is “meta tags”. These are sections of text that a user wouldn’t see, but the bot does. It contains keywords and a description of the page on your site. Unfortunately, many sites don’t have them.
  What we do: If you give us a list of keywords and a description for each page, we can make sure there are full and accurate meta tags on every page.

There are a few other things that can help you in the search engines (books have been written about it!) but these are the main ones. Beware of any website that says that can get you “guaranteed” Google listing in X number of days. It’s impossible to guarantee, it’s a waste of money, and it may mean links to your site that may discredit it, such as links from illegal or dodgy websites. The golden rule on the web is that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

All this may seem daunting – you must examine who your users are likely to be, plan your site, write text, find pictures, think about design, hosting, domain names and search engine optimisation. But that’s what we’re for! The only thing we really can’t do is write the text for you – other than that, we can guide you all the way through and even help you find a host and a domain name. We will answer all your questions, and never give you vague answers. If we don’t know, we’ll find out for you and get back to you as soon as possible.  Get in touch with us on our contact page today!