Tips on designing your website

The first step in designing your website is to identify why you want a website and what you hope to achieve through your online presence. This could range from simply wanting a web presence so that customers browsing on the Internet can find you, to wanting to create an online catalogue or online shopping site.

On this page:

• Decide on the purpose of your site
• Who will build your site
• Design do's and don'ts
• Make the most of your website
• Next steps

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Decide on the purpose of your site

It is important to define the purpose you want your website to achieve, because this will affect its look, feel, design and the information and features you include on your site. It will also influence the amount of money you are likely to want to spend on the site.

For example:

• If you want to build credibility, you'll showcase your work and testimonials from satisfied customers.
• If you want to assist your sales team, you'll provide product specifications and prices online, and any product or service guarantees and information to support why customers should buy from you.
• If you want to build a customer database, you'll design your site to encourage visitors to sign up for a free informative newsletter, or to refer a friend.

The people you want to attract to your site will also influence the design and content of the site. For example, a roofing supplies company might decide to target builders and architects. They will plan a site with product specifications and tendering content. This would be considerably different from a site aimed at the general public.

What features do you want or need?

Once you have identified why you want a website, it is a good idea to spend time online looking at other websites. Draw up a list of design elements and features that you like. Rank them in order of importance, and list the features needed to achieve the core purpose of your site separately from the features that fall in the 'nice to have, but not essential' category. This will help you decide whether to include them or not when you start getting design quotes.

Keep a list of web pages that you really like so that you can refer back to them or show them to web designers as an example of the style or functionality you are looking for.

What information should you include?

Your website is an online showcase for your business. The purpose of your site and the features you plan to include will determine the amount and type of information you include and who it is aimed at. Most businesses incorporate at least a home page with an overview of the business, a page with contact details and an FAQ page answering frequently asked questions.

It is a good idea to 'mind map' your web pages and develop a logical way to present your information. This will make your web designer's job easier and ensure that your website is easy to navigate.

Choosing a domain name

A site is useless if people can't find it, which is why choosing the right domain name is important. Try to figure out what words customers would type into a search engine when looking for you. This will help to guide the domain name you choose to register.

Other tips are

• Keep your domain name short. If you have two words, people won't remember whether they run together or are separated by a dot, a hyphen or an underscore.

• Avoid names that people may spell incorrectly when they type the address into a browser.

Your domain name choice might be limited because the domain name you want is already registered. If you can't get a .com or .co.nz domain with the name you want, there are a number of new options to consider like . biz. Otherwise, you might need to settle for a slight variation on your preferred domain name.

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Who will build your site?

There are three main options you can consider:

1. You can build your website from scratch yourself. There are a growing number of software packages you can learn to use to do this. This is likely to be the cheapest option in terms of financial outlay, but it will take a lot of time and effort to create a professional looking site.
2. You can get a website company to build a basic website from templates. These sites are quick to set up and contain a content management system that is easy to learn, allowing you to add web pages and update your site when you want to. The drawback is that design options and functionality can be limited, but this is a popular, quick and affordable option with more variety becoming available.
3. You can appoint a web design company to design an original site for you. This has a longer lead time and costs a lot more than the template option, but allows you to completely customise the look and feel of your site. You'll need to work closely with your designers to achieve the website you want. A good designer will combine your ideas with their knowledge of what works online to produce a slick and professional site.

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Design do's and don'ts

People skim read online. This means you'll get the best results if you keep your page design simple and uncluttered and avoid long tracts of plain text.

• Use lots of subtitles and bulleted lists.
• Make sure your text is simple and easy to understand.
• Get a professional to proof read your text for spelling and grammar errors.
• Make sure your site is easy to navigate. If your customers can't find what they are looking for, your competitor's site is only a mouse click away. Give visitors a way to get straight to the areas that interest them. Include an index, menu bar or set of navigation buttons on your home page.
• Include a site map or an internal site search form on your home page, so that visitors can search using keywords.
• Avoid complex animation, video and sound unless they add something to the experience without slowing down your site.
• Get help from an IT expert to ensure the right keywords that help search engines find you are embedded in your site's page titles and meta tags.
• Include links to related sites (in return for links to yours).
• Set up links so that they open in a new window and don't take the visitor away from your page.

Before you go live

It's important to present your business in a professional manner, so don't launch your site until you know everything works:

• Check that it looks right on screen and view the site at various screen resolutions and in different browsers. An online service like www.browsershots.org will automatically test different browsers automatically.
• Check all internal and external links work. The W3C link validator at validator.w3.org/checklink can do this for you.
• Check how your pages print in black and white.

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Make the most of your website

Your home page

Customers should immediately understand what your website offers when they land on your home page. It should be easy to navigate and give immediate payoffs - like news, offers, or the key information they'd be looking for.

• Make it easy for customers to contact you, and respond to their enquiries promptly.
• Involve visitors to your site in doing something, rather than just looking. For example, set up a discussion forum and encourage customers to exchange tips and advice, or offer an opt-in monthly newsletter.
• Include a survey on your site from time to time, but keep it short and easy to complete. Customers like being asked for their opinions and you can gain some genuinely useful feedback.

The web is a dynamic medium, and you should update your content often. Businesses often make the mistake of designing a website but then sit back with the expectation that the site will continue to be useful. Changes to your home page signal to repeat visitors that there is something new to see on your site.

• Create a schedule for updating and assign someone to the task.
• Make your regular customers feel special and privileged. Use password restricted areas to allow repeat customers to see appropriate prices and discounts or to access premium content such as articles, tools and resources.
• A website aimed at encouraging sales must look and feel dynamic to encourage visitors to act.

Using images

If you need visual material, use images from your brochure, scan photos (saving them as JPEGs) or take shots with a digital camera. If you're sourcing photos or images from the Internet, check that you have permission from the copyright holder.

Generally, keep pictures small, but if you're illustrating products, make sure the pictures are large enough to see the detail or give people the option to click on them to see a larger image.

Check that you have the right to use all the design elements, programming and pictures that make up your site.

Promote your site

It's important to actively promote your website in all your marketing activities.

• Include the website address in all your correspondence, business stationery, and vehicle signage - a web address is often easier to remember than a phone number.
• Include your website address in your email signature.

Track your visitors to improve your site

Using a website analytics package enables you to see exactly how people use your website and allows you to improve your site. Many web hosts include an analytics package as standard; alternatively, you can install a free package like Google Analytics or AWStats or buy a commercial analytics package. Once your analytics package is installed, you can:

• See how many people visit your site, and how long they stay.
• Analyse the paths your customers take and identify where people drop out of the purchasing process.
• Discover how people find your site and which keywords are working.
• See average order values, and data about repeat visitors. Do they purchase again, or just come back for help?

The web is the most measurable marketing channel there is, so ensure you make full use of the information available to you. Try changing one thing at a time on your site, then waiting to see whether it improves your statistics.

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Next steps

• Surf the Internet and keep a list of the websites you really like. Plan to incorporate the best ideas into your site.
• Find out how to comply with the Privacy Act.
• If you are new to e-business, get help from the  NZTE free e-business guide.
• Ask other business owners who they used to design their website, and how much it cost.