Websites
Your website is your store front or office in the virtual world. Just as you want your store front to be appealing to all who pass by, or your office to be admired by those who visit-you want your website to appeal to as many web surfers as possible. The best way to begin in the design of your website, is to determine your target market-your site should appeal the most to those within that specific market.
Next you’ll need to determine why you need a website. Will you use your website to provide detailed information to visitors, to provide and/or sell products or services, or maybe to generate leads for a direct marketing business? Determining why you need a website will help you to decide what you want your website to accomplish.
When you’ve established your target market, and what you want your website to accomplish, then it’s time to determine what will appeal to your potential clients the most. Color is very important in establishing your presence on the internet. The colors you choose for your website can affect how your visitors will react to your content and your products. Visit our Color Center to help you decide on your colors.
A basic website consists of:
• a page header-which states the purpose of the site as quickly as possible through text and images
• navigation-links to other sections of your site-typically on the top, left, right, or all 3-should be easy to read and understand. Text navigation is preferable for better SEO.
• the body of the website-the place where all of your information and images go. Placement is key in the body of your website. Important items should go "above the fold" (the area viewable before any scrolling is done).
• contact information-always make yourself easily accessible to your visitors. This is a key component for promoting security.
• copyright-you should always include a copyright statement on your website to protect your content legally.
If you plan to sell products from your site, then you’ll need an eCommerce solution. Typically, this means a shopping cart script, as well as some type of Merchant account and payment gateway.
Merchant Account: A "bank account" established with a payment processor for the settlement of credit card transactions. Any merchant who wants to take credit card orders must establish a merchant account. Internet merchants need a "Card Not Present Merchant Account."
Internet Merchants also need a payment gateway to process payments online.
Payment Gateway: A payment gateway is a service provided by a billing processor, which allows credit card information to be collected and passed over the internet. A payment gateway can be thought of as a digital equivalent to a credit card processing terminal.
For more information, visit our Ecommerce section.
It is very important to have the images and photos within your website optimized for fast viewing. While technology is swiftly catching up to higher resolution images, there are still people surfing the web on dial up connections. Even people who are viewing your website on a fast connection will want your site to load rapidly. Classic Creations optimizes the images and photos within your website for the best of all scenarios. Never sacrificing the beauty and integrity, yet allowing them to load as quickly as possible.
Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a website by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a website ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site. SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine.
Optimizing your site includes writing keyword rich content for every page of your website. Experts say each page of your site should include 250 words of content to be effective. At a minimum each page within your website design should include a title tag, keyword tags, a description tag, and optimized content to go with those elements.
For more information on optimizing your website content visit our Marketing section.
Know What Domain Name You Want?
You can check to see if it’s available (as well as purchase it) here:
Website Content
It is important to remember that we do not provide any website content for our clients. If you need content written for you, we can provide you with a list of copy writers that we frequently work with.
What Will It All Cost?
There are many steps (and decisions) involved in designing a website. Each website will be unique in design, just because it serves a specific purpose for being. Once you’ve determined the market for your site, and the need it will fill, you’re ready to begin. Start by completing our questionnaire for a free, no obligation, quote.
