Developing Your Website By Ann Stanley

1. Developing Your WebsiteBy Ann Stanley

4. Top tips for setting up a website • Objectives • DIY or agency? • Planning • Design • Content • Functionality and website build • Other considerations • Hosting and technical requirements • Marketing • Measuring performance

5. Objectives

6. Know what your business wants to achieve Agenda for today • What’s your business aim • What will the website address • “Brochure” website • Selling online • Supporting customers in some other way • How will the website further your objectives

7. What is the purpose of your website? • What are you going to offer - product or service • What’s your unique offering • Do you have experience in this area • What are your current routes to market • Who are your target customers and markets • Who are your competitors • What are your targets – leads, sales, costs & margins • What website traffic and conversions do you need to achieve these targets

8. DIY or Agency

9. DIY or Help From An Agency • Experience – • Do you already have a website • Are you diversifying (product and/or route to market) • Which resource is in shortest supply – time or money • If you can afford it - use an agency for the technical stuff i.e. building the site, driving traffic etc • If you have to do everything yourself then there will be a steep learning curve – setting up and selling online, then running the business – take advantage of all the free Business Link courses • Focus on what you are best at – get help for the rest

10. Planning

11. Strategic Overview for Planning Your Site Site situation analysis Business objectives Clients’ requirements Site objectives Marketing objectives Constraints Strategy/Tactics Structure/navigation Design Content Functionality Usability Sales conversion

12. What do you get for your Budget

13. Help with funding • Business Link or Government Grants • Eligibility criteria often size of company and location • Grants run out quickly due to demand

14. Design

15. Brand & Design • Develop your logo, brand and look • Target audience • Competitor activity • Personality you want to project • Develop your website design • First impressions count & effect conversions • Is the aim of the home page to maximise sales or project your brand • “Off-the-Shelf” ecommerce website packages are limited to a few simple templates and design options • Your website needs to have the right balance between design, content and functionality – The Magic Triangle

16. The Magic Triangle Design – first impressions counts These approaches are often used by different types of web designers or developers and can conflict with each other Functionality – what the site does for the user and your business Content – what the site says to the user and search engines

17. Wire Frame

18. Same Ecommerce Software – With Customisation of Different Templates

19. Branding – Lifestyle & Aspirations

20. Branding – Lifestyle & Aspirations

21. Branding – Design & Imagery

22. Effective Web Design

23. Poor Web Design

27. Multimedia - Flash

28. Content

29. Copywriting • Engage visitors in a conversational tone • Avoid “puff pieces” • tell the visitor what you can do for them • Break information down to manageable chunks, • Bulleted lists where appropriate • The more information you can provide, the easier it is for a buyer to make a decision • Most important information at the top • Write for user and the search engines

30. Images No Text = No Keyphrases

32. Too Much Text

33. Navigation: Good Example

34. Navigation: Bad Example

35. Ongoing ContentBlog With Social Media Plug-ins

36. WordPress admin interface

37. Creating a blog post

38. CMS - Editing The Page

39. Functionality& Website Build

40. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Enables different style elements to be controlled across the site: • Typography • Backgrounds • Borders/margins • Structural elements, e.g. Navigation Benefits: • More control over layout • Quicker loading pages • Quicker development & updates • Easier to support multiple platforms egpda • Allows use of different font sizes and colours for accessibility • Better for search engines (page layout data stored in CSS not diluting page text) www.csszengarden.com

41. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

42. CSS Zen Garden

43. Bespoke CMS - Reflex Admin Interface

44. Page text manager for creating and editing pages, titles and descriptions

45. Menu manager – for changing order or content within your menus

46. Form manager for creating forms

47. Data Manager – for viewing or modifying information for forms

48. File manager – for uploading images and other files

49. Other Considerations

50. Selling Online - Money issues • Merchant bank account and taking credit card payments • Apply for your merchant bank account early • This can take up to 8 weeks to organise • If you are a new business or you are rejected by your bank you may have to use PayPal, WorldPay or a similar payment gateway (payment service provider) • If you are considered high risk you may have to wait 28 days to receive your cash, or you may need to take out a bond • The choice of merchant bank account will influence the choice of Payment Gateway and in some cases even your shopping cart • Fraud • Watch for fraudulent credit card transaction, especially overseas sales and returns • There are many other forms of fraud • “phishing” - getting you to add your details to a fake website • “passing off” – setting up a site to scam your customers by pretending to be you • Cash-flow • Cost of acquiring a sale compared with what you can afford • Making sure you get enough cash to cover your overheads