Getting Started

Should you decide this package is for you, the next question is typically, “where do we go from here?”

Of course, before embarking on any web project it’s obviously important to have a rough idea of what you’re looking to achieve, so below you’ll find a rough guide of what your web developer will need from you to get you started:

Site Structure

Think about the number of pages required to create your site, but also to populate it with content.

Google wants to see high quality content, so spreading the pages thinly with very little content won’t help you in the search engine rankings.

Typically, a brochure site consists of the following aspects (pages/sections). Delete each page as applicable, or add your own ideas.

• Home page |About Us page
• Services page (or Services index page and sub-pages for each service)
• Portfolio page| Testimonials page| Blog or News page
• Contact Us page

Content

In an ideal world each page will have around 1,500 words on it to ensure it’s perfect for indexing by Google.

This is not always possible, but you should look to achieve at least 300 words per page, with 15 keywords included for good measure.

Google wants high quality, unique, and informative copy. The more useful the content is to the user, the better you are able to rank.

Design and Examples

A detailed idea of what you want visually isn’t always necessary, but providing examples of websites that tick all the right boxes will be hugely beneficial.

For example; should you like the navigation menu from one site, the slide from another, the fonts from another, and the colour scheme of another, note these down and provide the URLs as a point of reference.

The more examples you can provide, the more likely it is that your designer will be on the same page and have a good idea of your personal taste or your corporate vision.

For reference, Adobe’s Kuler colour swatch library may help you when choosing the right balance of colours for your site (try to pick a colour scheme that includes white if you use it).

https://color.adobe.com/explore/most-popular/?time=all

Images

Almost every site today uses images to enhance the visual appeal of their pages. If you have your own images and they are aesthetically pleasing, we will be able to use them.

Should you not have your own images, there are a number of free or affordable stock image sites that you can use. A few are listed below for your convenience.

• http://photodune.net/
• http://www.morguefile.com/
• http://www.freeimages.com/

Note: Your development site will be populated with high quality Shutter Stock images from years of previous site developments until you provide replacements.

Whilst these have been purchased from previous site builds, to avoid any potential copyright issues, you should still always consider replacing these with your own.

Miscellaneous

While the four points above are the cornerstones of a web development project, the devil is in the details, as they say.

Try to be specific with regards to anything you feel may need extra attention, or may vary from site to site.

A perfect example of this is a simple contact form. Specify the fields you wish to see on the form, in addition to the email address you want it to be sent to.