Yes, we know what you mean. You want a website. The thing is, there are lots of different types of websites out there, and we’re not really sure what kind you want. It really helps us if you’ve thought about what kind of website you want - and what you want it to do - when you ask us to make you a website.
We call the list of things you want a brief. And this brief helps us to understand what you’re trying to do, and helps us to understand what we’ll have to do to achieve it - which helps us to give you a fully costed proposal, and saves complications later on.
When you’re putting together your brief, here are a couple of things to think about:
How will your site be organised? It helps if you’ve thought about how you want the content on your site to be organised - what sections you want on the site and which information will be found in each section. It helps if you draw a site plan that sets out the pages your website will contain and how these will be organised into sections. If you want a section that tells people about your products/services, then make sure you’ve included one in your site plan. Remember that if you’re going to be using a content management system to manage your website (which means you’ll be able to change the content) then you’ll probably need to write your own content, or employ a copy-writer to do so.
What do you want your website to do? Do you want a simple brochure site where the pages are fairly static, or do you want an eCommerce site where you’ll need to change your stock constantly? Do you know that your site needs to grow, and that you might need to add things to the navigation as your company changes in future? Do you want any interaction between you and your customers or audience on the site - a forum or a form you want them to fill in? Do you want people to be able to sign up for an eNewsletter on the site? It really helps if you’ve had a look round the web and have some examples of sites that do similar things to what you want yours to do.
What do you want your website to look like? As well as being techy wizards we’re artists. It’s really helpful to us if you’ve got a section in your brief that tells us how you’d like your site to be, visually - do you want it to be exciting and crazy, or simple and clean, or bright and cheery, or professional, friendly, corporate, zany, refined... you name it, we can design it. Again, if you’ve had a look round the web and can give us examples of sites that you feel reflect what you’re trying to achieve visually, that’s great. Have you had a look at websites we’ve designed before? Do you like our style? Of course we design each website to meet the requirements of each client, but we probably do have a ‘house style’ - if you like what we’ve done for others, the chances are greater that you’ll like what we’ll do for you.
Of course, we understand that sometimes you won’t have all the details fully ironed out before you come to us - and we’re happy to talk through with you how you want things to work. We know that sometimes these discussions will give you new ideas, and we’re happy to advise. But the clearer you can be about what it is that you want, the more helpful we can be about making it for you.
© tictoc Family Ltd 2008