If you're designing this Web site for your own business, remember that its purpose is to inform and persuade. Don't get side-tracked into making pictures blink, buttons flash, and everything jump about.
Put Yourself in the Mind of Your Customer
As with all business communications, try to put yourself in the mind of your customer or would-be customer and talk to them in language they understand about issues that concern them. Concentrate on benefits rather than features, what makes you special, and so on.
Plan Your Content First
Planning the content helps you focus on the overall purpose of the site and will help keep that focus as you go through the design process. As well as promoting your products and services, there are some pages that are found on most company Web sites and that you should think about including.
Introduction
Welcome, who you are, what you do.
Links page
Useful for encouraging visitors to go through your site to other useful sites. Include affiliate links if you have them.
Contact us
Make it easy for the visitor to contact you. Include your company address, phone numbers, and e-mail address. More sophisticated features you can include on your Web site enable the visitor to contact you direct by e-mail or have you phone them back. These interactive features require some programming and sometimes extra charges from your ISP as well, so you may want to leave them out until later. Remember also that it is good etiquette, and useful for you as designer, to let people send you feedback about the site.
Our people
These days, when it's quite possible to carry out business with people you never see, a bit of personal background and a photograph can do wonders in personalizing your image.
How to find us
If you're running a business where people may want to come to your premises, a map and travel directions are useful. If you're concerned about security, consider including these on a page that is not linked to the rest of the site, and give a direction to the page only to people you trust.
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