How to Design a Website for Start-ups
You have taken the first step in owning your own business. You are unsure if your start-up business needs a website. The answer is “absolutely”. In this web-centric world, you need to make sure your potential clients know you are credible, knowledgeable, and easy to find day or night. Find some of the best reasons you need a website at this link: “Reasons your start-up needs a website.”
You know all there is to know about your business, but not about how to design a website. It is important to choose an excellent web developer if you don’t know how to design a website. You need some planning before your new website professional creates the site. A first step should be doing a search for other businesses on the web that will be your competition. See what you like about those sites and what you don’t like or find confusing. Brainstorm with collaborators or employees about colors, styles, and graphics you would like to see on your site. Think about how soon you want to launch your site and the budget you have for site creation.
Getting Started
Once you are convinced you need a website and have an idea about what you like, you can start deciding who you want to design your site. With today’s technology, you can use your laptop or smartphone to work face-to-face with web developers who are across the country on how to design a website. You also need to be prepared to answer questions this developer will need to know to determine how to design a website for you. Do you need an e-commerce site? Designers will need to know these things to know how to design a website for you. You need to be able to define your target audience, your goals, time frame, and budget.
Website Format
Early on, you will need to decide what format your website will take. That is certainly a question that a web designer will want to discuss with you to determine how to design a website for you. There are several types based on your needs:
Basic: A standard HTML site has individual pages edited manually by those who know how to design a website. An HTML site is a fairly quick site to design, but it requires quite a bit of designer maintenance.
Content Management System (CMS): That is a type of CMS, like WordPress. WordPress is perfect for blogs but has developed through themes and plugins to handle just about any website. A CMS allows you to do regular content updates, so you don’t need to know how to design a website. The designer creates the look and framework of the website and you update. CMS sites are based on a template or built from scratch and have good built-in Search-Engine-Optimization.
Flash: Adobe Flash websites are much more complicated websites that offer animated and multimedia experiences. It makes for eye-catching sites, but it can be time-consuming to make sure it operates as you want.
You may want to decide if you want a more “simple” site or one with all the bells and whistles. You may decide that you want a site that you can easily keep fresh with updates you can handle. See advantages of minimalist sites at: “simple design.” If you want more great advice, contact the developers at simplemachinedesign.com with your questions about how to design a website. See if they can be just the right solution for your start-up’s website.
