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Things To Do

The first step is to make sure your computer is ready.   If you aren't running anti-virus, you need to visit the "Free Tools" page and get AVG Anti-Virus.  It's free, and the "Tutorials" button has everything you need to know to set it up.  If you have Norton or McAfee already installed that's OK, but they must be up to date.

You will also need to change a few options within Windows to enable you to work better with web designing software.  First you must turn on viewing of the file name extensions, and I strongly recommend activating Windows Quick-Launch bar.  Both are five minute jobs, and again the "Tutorials" button has everything you need.

Next, you'll want to get your new domain-based email set up, so you can start transitioning both your business and/or personal contacts over to them.  You can do that before you even have a site built!  A 10 minute job, and again, the "Tutorials" button has everything you'll need to know to accomplish that.

Now you're ready to start work on your actual web site.  The first step in designing a web site is to do a layout on paper.  Decide what pages you'll want to include, and the kinds of things you'll want to put on them.  The "Make It Sticky" FAQ, if you haven't read it yet, might give you some additional ideas.  But here's a list of some pages that many business sites include:

Home Page - Logo, basic intro, perhaps a single picture, and a little of what to expect from the rest of the site.  Think of your home page as an "About Us" page for the site!  Also, search engines like a significant amount of content on a home page ... between 500 to 750 words, re-using your keywords/phrases as often as makes sense.

About Us - A little business history here is good, but this is really a "why buy from me" page.  What differentiates you from the other guy?  Here's where you educate the potential customer without taking up real-time.

Our Staff - Sometimes included in the "About Us" page, but if the staff is large and/or unique to your business, you probably want a separate page.  And maybe even pics.

Take a Tour - Again, sometimes included in the "About Us" page depending on the size and type of business, this page is usually a pictorial virtual tour of the business, inside and out.

Products & Pricing- Naturally.  We're here to sell stuff, aren't we?  In depth item descriptions, (with pics if you sell a tangible product), are "must haves".  No successful site is without them.

FAQs, (Frequently Asked Questions) - More educating the customer, and question / objection handling without taking up your normal business time.  The more questions you run into in your day to day business you can address here, the more time it will save you in your day to day operations, plus the more comfortable the potential customer feels walking in the door.

Testimonials and/or Completed Projects - Whichever applies.  A product reseller might offer customer testimonials about how pleasant it was to deal with them, whereas an auto body shop might post a picture of the job they finished last week.  A beautifully finished Jaguar speaks for itself.

Contact Us - Pretty obvious.  All forms of contact info on one page.  Perhaps even a map.

Now that you've decided what pages to include, the rest is obvious.  You'll need to either gather up or create all the info you're going to put on those pages in digital format.  These might include things like your logo, menu or price sheet, pictures of staff, products, projects, or your establishment, and, of course, the copy that you want.

As for the copy, Google likes to see 500 to 750 words on a web page, but don't let that throw you.  I've seen highly ranked pages with only 100 words.  More importantly, the text must be written in a particular fashion that has to do with "Search Engine Optimization", (SEO).  So if you're reading this before your first appointment with us, it will probably be a waste of your time to start typing right now.  Wait until we teach you how to write the copy at our first meeting before you get busy with that task.

When you do, don't worry about the layout and formatting of what you write because little of that will translate anyway.  We'll do all that once we've pasted the text into FrontPage.

Pictures also have to be made "web ready".  (If you already have a graphics editing program you're familiar with, great!  If not, visit the "Free Tools" page to download XnView and the "Tutorials" button to quickly learn how to install and use it.)  You simply need to make all the pictures you intend to use less than 100k in file size.  If you intend to use multiple full-size pictures, (non-thumb-nailed) on a page, it's best to get each one down to a 50k file size.

Sounds like a lot of work, but it's not really.  The good news is that once you're done, you're also well on the way to having your web site done!!  In spite of the technical nature of web sites, it's still the grunt work that takes up 80% of our time!