This document provides an overview of the website design process for small businesses. It discusses planning content and structure, different types of sites, budgets, domains and hosting, finding designers, contracts, the design and development process, pre-launch testing, ongoing maintenance, and marketing the completed site. Business owners are advised to thoroughly plan content and functionality before hiring a designer, provide timely feedback during the process, and budget for ongoing maintenance and marketing after launch.
1. Small Business
Website Design
What Every Business Owner Needs to Know
about Participating in the Process, Working
with a Designer and Producing a Site that
Works for Your Business
2. What we’ll cover
Planning the site
structure & content
Types of sites
Budget
Domain names
Hosting
Finding a
designer/developer
Contracts
Design &
development process
Pre-launch check
Maintenance/
updates
Marketing
3. Planning
The more you have planned ahead of
time, the better!
Things you should know:
Your business model
Who are your customers or Audience?
What do you want your customers to do?
• Call to action
How will this site solve your customers’
problem?
5. Site Types
Brochure - Set it and Forget it, (but don’t)
Basic static pages, simple form
Informational - Regularly Updated
Needs a database and/or blogging capability
E-commerce (Can be used for services, too)
Requires shopping cart (customer, order and
product information storage and retrieval)
6. Planning
Things you should have an idea about:
Branding
• visual interface to ‘set tone/expectations’,
based on your audience and corporate
culture
• Logo, Colors, Look and Feel
• Focus on good design, not clutter
Content (Message or ‘Pitch’)
• Written copy (Optimized for Search Engines
Humans with keywords)
• Product photos or other images
• Video or Audio
7. Planning
Functionality
Forms (registration, mailing
list, contact us)
Shopping cart or way
for customers to pay
you
Content Management
System (CMS)
Information feeds like
news or MLS
8. Planning
Structure
Flow chart (your
developer can/should
assist with this)
• How many pages or
‘screens’
• What links to what
• How pages are
categorized (Do you
sort by color or
style?)
9. MORE Planning!
Examples
Competition
What you love (functionality, color, style, etc.)
What you hate
What you NEED now, what would be nice later
Sites can be built in stages, as long as it’s planned for
Questionnaire is a good place to start
Whew! Now that all the planning is done….
10. How Much Will This Cost?
How much do you project
making?
10-20% of what you will make in the first year
is a good baseline
How much can you do yourself?
Writing, photography etc.
What is your time worth?
It Depends….
Website is an ongoing
investment
“Average” small business should
expect low to mid 4 figures.
11. How Much Will This Cost?
What type of site do you need?
Blog (minimal design capability) = Free
(remember your time…)
Brochure = $2500-$4500 (Estimated labor
20 to 60 hours)
Infomational or E-Commerce = $4500-
$8500++
Maintenance and marketing are key to
success and not included in these
estimates!
12. Domains & Hosting
Domain - $10+ year
Your site address: www.greatsite.com
Leased not owned! If you fail to stay current
on payment, you will LOSE the rights to
lease the domain.
Hosting - $120+ year
The server where your actual files live
Hosting packages normally include a limited
# of email addresses that can be setup
YOU MUST PAY YOUR OWN BILL &
KEEP TRACK OF THE LOGIN
INFORMATION!
Use the spreadsheet
13. Finding a
Designer/Developer
Not all designers know how to code, not all developers
know how to design
$Designer/developer, small company, freelance, home office
$$-$$$Advertising/Design firm
• Designer, developer, writer, photographer, ad placement,
fancy office
Ask your friends & family
(If you have a friend actually do the site, do you care about
deadlines and quality? Professionals are much more
accountable.)
Who developed the sites in your industry that you
admire?
Look for functionality, not ‘Flash Bang’
LinkedIn, Google
14. Finding a
Designer/Developer
Do they have the skill set you need?
Don’t be shy about asking questions
• Be cautious about FLASH
Have they made sites that work the way you
want yours to work?
ALWAYS –
Check the designers’ site (broken links or
‘coming soon’ pages are a RED FLAG)
Check their clients’ sites and get references
Get more than one bid
• (Compare by services offered, not just price.
Lowest is often more expensive in long run)
15. The Proposal & Contract
Don’t leave home without it
Protects the owner and designer
Defines the scope of work
Define WHO is responsible for
WHAT
• Who is providing content
Deadlines go both ways
Who “owns” what at the end
• Content, artwork, code
Payment structure
• Typically 33% or 50% up front
Is maintenance covered?
• Negotiate!
Can you get out?
16. The Proposal & Contract
What can raise the cost
Revisions, additions,
changes
• Remember all that
planning?
Scope Creep
17. The Process
Yay! We’re finally creating something!
You’ve planned, now
designer does
discovery
Share all of your
planning
Be prepared for more
questions!
Wireframes
Structure first, to include
all content and plan
layout
18. The Process
Mock-ups
Picture of the home and
possibly additional page
May have more than
one choice
• Now you can see
which shade of
purple works best
Now is the time to
change your mind and
revise!
19. The Process
Stay Flexible
Not everything that was
planned for can happen
exactly
Content and images are
never exactly the same
20. The Process
Remember – Sites
aren’t magazines
You don’t control how
people see your site.
Keep the design flexible
and user friendly
Talk about the site being
“responsive” with your
designer
21. The Process
Development
The coding that actually creates the site
Includes functionality that makes the site ‘go’ and can
include Galleries, Slide Shows, Email forms,
Shopping Carts, Blog installations . . .
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
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<head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11"> <title>Designing Your Site, Things Every Business Owner Should
Know</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <meta
name="generator" content="WordPress 2.9.2" /> <!-- leave this for stats please --> <link rel="stylesheet"
href="http://www.beckydavisdesign.com/seminar/wp-content/themes/BDD_Su/style.css" type="text/css"
media="screen" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0"
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href="http://www.beckydavisdesign.com/seminar/xmlrpc.php" />
22. The Process
Each stage needs YOUR approval
Layout, design, development, launch
Delays in content delivery, approval and
payment schedule all directly affect your
deadline
Design changes or added
functionality requests during
development will be extra $$
23. Pre-launch Check
Use more than one tester
Preferably someone who has not seen the site before
Does every link work?
Do the forms work?
Does the shopping cart work?
Does it pass the Mom test?
Test in Major Browsers: Explorer, Firefox,
Chrome, Opera (both on PC and Mac) AND as
many devices as you can find
Designer should do, but you should too!
24. Maintenance & Updates
You planned for this, right?
Monthly fee?
CMS training?
Publishing schedule for blog or events?
Updating products or inventory?
You’re NEVER done.
Relevant and current content wins in search
26. Marketing
Social Media (easier for some business types
than others)
• Facebook fan page
• Your LinkedIn Profile
• Twitter
• Use what works for you!
Email marketing
• MailChimp
• Constant Contact
• AWeber
• Active Campaign
Printed material
• Your Email Address should be you@company.com
NOT gmail, and NOT aol. (Support your domain!)
27. Marketing
Nothing replaces real face to face
networking!
Advertising
• Adwords
• pay-per-click
• Print, radio
• TV advertising
Part of the planning
Part of the budget
28. Contact Information
Becky Davis
becky@beckydavisdesign.com
773-809-5640
These slides and MORE!
http://beckydavisdesign.com/seminar-
schedule/