I know that getting a website can feel overwhelming when you’re more concerned about paying that bill, hiring a new sub-contractor, and meeting the next deadline. So, I just wanted to share 6 starting points as you are daydreaming about your new Web presence.

1) The most important element on a website is the one sentence description of what you offer. Take some special time to come up with that perfect one sentence description that covers who, what, when and where. This sentence will be used in multiple ways on your website including being embedded as a “META” tag in the code of your future website. Keep the sentence to the point, short and sweet!

2) The next most important element is the paragraph description that is basically an expansion of your one-sentence description. Take some time to rough draft a paragraph. This paragraph can be fine-tuned later, but at least get it started as this paragraph ’should’ be used on your home page. Your home page is the most important page on your website and the paragraph should explain what you offer in simple, too-the-point terms.

3) Outline the pages that you’d like to have. The pages can be refined at a later date. To get an idea, look at similar websites for ideas.

4) Do you have a logo? If not, consider hiring a graphic designer, or have the Web designer like me, dream up one for you. Note: Extensive logo design is treated as a separate project by any professional and expect separate billing for it. Logo design is an important part of your “business branding”. As a Web designer, when I look at a client’s logo, it gives me a good idea (or should) about how the website should look. Typically I’ll choose colors or shades of the colors in the logo for the entire website. Sometimes I will emulate the shape of the logo throughout the site if the shape supports the message successfully.

6) Finally, for the fun part…. surf the Web. Look at your competitor’s websites. Make a list of at least 5 websites and write down what you like and don’t like about each.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 2:59 am and is filed under website tips for clients. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.