Websites: Things to be Considered

1. Who is your target audience?
   This question, though open-ended, can drive your web design more than any other factor. Any time the answer changes, so will the design of your site. Spend time on this. Get a clear solid answer for a reasonable time frame knowing that change will mean cost.
2. Leave the high-tech solutions to your webmaster (unless you really know what your doing).
   Your decisions should be focused on your user – what they see and how they do it. What server should be used? What language will it be developed in? What kind of database? SHOULD YOU CARE? Don’t get in too deep. The developers have experience and "usually" know what their doing. Make them present to you their recommended solutions and you can question it then.
3. Look is always important…
   You will need a graphics designer. Count on it. Calculate the cost in (or get a designer who will add it to his bid). Don't settle for less than great. How your site looks impacts its "stickiness" – which is a high goal for any site – to keep the user there as long as possible.
4. ...but looks are not as important as function!
   Don’t ever forget it – you can have a great looking site and have one or two things not work properly and you'll irritate the user to the point of leaving. Both of these steps are vital. Don't "skimp" on either. A quality user interface designer in conjunction with a good graphics artist can make your site rock! As they say, you only get one chance for a first impression – make it count!
5. What elements are necessary?
   Do you need e-commerce? Do you need dynamic content? Do you need database support? Answer these in correspondence with your developers as they may be able to provide valuable insights.
6. Always get the company name as a domain name.

• Don't use a subfolder on another domain – www.someotherdomain.com/mydomain.
• Get a .com for business, .org for non-profit, or .net for ISP related. Don't cross-over – you'll confuse your users. Yours isn't available? Buy it! In the long-run you will not regret it. If you can’t afford to do that, consider adding a hyphen to the name. Be logical or get your webmaster's help. This is vitally important for people finding your site.

7. Market a domain name which is catchy – www.mycompanydoesthis.com.
   Why? Catchy will be remembered. This is where you must consider your need for marketing. All you have to do is pay for the domain name and have it forwarded to your main company domain. Little cost – huge impact!
8. You will need at least one basic email address – "info".
   Others to be considered are "support", "sales", and any other departments which may be of interest to outside consumers / users.
   Another concern in email is the use of the main domain (mycompany.com) as your email router. We must give kudos to the fact that logic can dictate email addresses. If Joe Customer needs to contact Mary Employee over at your company, most likely her address is memployee@mycompany.com, marye@mycompany.com, mary.employee@mycompany.com or something else as easily predictable. Do you want to risk the possibility of someone figuring out Mary's address? How about yours? Do you care? If you do, consider an additional domain for mail only – something like mail-mycompany.com.
9. Technology
   Wow. This is a big one. Do you want flash? Plug-ins? Weather? Time? Scrolling marquis? Etc., etc., etc.??? We could go on and on. This one goes back to your target audience and the amount you want to spend on the site. Are most of your customers using high bandwidth or low bandwidth? If low, stay as low tech as possible. People will not wait forever to load your pages. If you are targeting both, go for the low tech solution and when you have time and the money consider developing a higher tech site.
10. Organize and approve content
    Most of the delays in the development of a website come from communication bottlenecks between the developers of the website and the company getting the content to them. Do you want to be the bottleneck which doesn’t allow your site to go online? Then get the content to the developers. The faster they have it and the more they have, the better your site can be. You can always trim. It's always better (in development) to have too much to work with than too little.
11. Search engines
    Are you going to invest in this medium of marketing? Things change in this area a lot. Therefore, before fronting the cost of one of those "search engine placement" companies, have your designer implement the basics and work through ways to get "hits" – i.e. market your site. Your designer should know how to handle appropriate search engine placement concepts or can refer you to someone who can.
12. Things to consider when working with a designer - Daniel Will-Harris