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| Internet Solutions : Understanding the cycle |
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Design phase
Maintanance after development
How to build an effective website?
Website components
Load time for each page
Navigation between pages
How to make Browser friendly site
Making special effects
Does it deliver the message?
Is the site clear?
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Designing a site is the first stage after gathering information from you and it takes a large amount of time. Also in the phase most of our creative process takes place. This stage of the design is time consuming and expensive and it is at this stage that we can determine exactly how long our development will be.
- What you want and need in your site
- The designer's hourly rate
- The size of your site
- Software development (e.g., JavaScripts, CGI, etc.)
- Custom artwork
- Copywriting
Prices for a four or five page site will be less than 1000.00 USD up to thousands of dollars for a custom design. Custom designed website display your products and services and allow communications between your prospects via forms. These types of websites typically cost between 2000.00 USD - 4000.00 USD |
| Once your site is on the Internet, keeping it there can be fairly cheap. To keep your site online, you have to pay your monthly hosting fee and annual domain name renewal. You can keep a site on the Internet for less than $30 per month. If you maintain your site yourself, or if your website needs no updating, there are no site maintenance charges. If you decide to have someone else maintain, update, and track the performance of your site, we can offer you service agreements. |
There is a difference between having a website and having an effective website. A website displays your goods and services. An effective website converts visitors into paying customers.
Two things drive the effectiveness of your website - mechanics and marketing. The mechanics are the technical aspects of your site: how fast it loads, usability, etc. Marketing is copy (text) that entices your visitors to stay and explore your site.
Your designer should have an understanding of the following topics and should be able to discuss any of them with you. |
| The mechanics of your website are the technical features that make it work and make it easy to use. Does the website load quickly, or do your visitors have to sit and wait? Can your visitors find their way around your site, or do they get lost trying to figure out your menus? Can all your visitors see your site, or does it get scrambled because they are using a different browser? |
Research has shown that if your pages take more than ten seconds to load, you will lose a substantial portion of your visitors before they even see your site. Internet users can be impatient, and there are too many competing websites around to wait for slow web pages.
This should be a major design driver for your site.
To get your pages loaded quickly, keep the number of pictures and graphics to a minimum. All images should be as small as practical and should be compressed to reduce file size. If it is necessary to include large pictures, place them on interior pages and toward the bottom of the page so that your visitors can read text as the pages load. |
| Your site navigation scheme (menus) must be intuitive and easy to follow. By the time your visitors get to the second page, they must understand how your site is arranged and how to get around. Pages must be clearly labeled in the main menu, and submenus must be very obvious. If visitors get lost in your site, they are much more likely to leave than they are to struggle with a confusing navigation scheme. |
| Your website must be compatible with all common browsers and with all common computers. The Netscape browser and the Internet Explorer browser both have unique features. They each recognize web pages that the other browser cannot read. Websites also look different on Personal Computers (PCs) than they do on Macintosh computers (Macs). To be effective, your site must be designed to be viewable with either browser on any home computer. |
The word on special effects - Don't! Special effects drive your development cost up and they drive your visitors away. Your visitors are looking for products, services, and information. They are not looking for "cool" effects, commercials, or things that slow page loading.
If you believe that adding special features (animations, music, flashing graphics, etc.) will add something to your site, put them on internal pages, not the first page. |
Finally, your site should be legible. Avoid small fonts and hard to read fonts (scripts, italics). Be sure that the font color provides high contrast with the page background so that it is easy to read. Poorly designed sites with illegible black text on dark backgrounds are all too common on the Internet. Don't let it happen on your site.
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