What are the most important things to consider when developing a Website for a small local business?

Answer 1

1) target audience. Make sure site is promoted and written to appeal to your target.

2) Very good design. Poor design makes the business seem unprofessional.

3) Grammar, spelling, and general content should be correct and appealing

4) Budget. Don't spend 100 hours on a site for a tiny mom-and-pop whose budget is $300.00

5) Cross-promotion. A site doesn't help anyone if nobody knows it exists. Promote it on all the search engines & promote it WELL. Make sure all the company's radio and print ads cross-promote to their Web presence. It should be on their business cards and any other formal correspondence or advertising.

6) Respecting copyrights, legal issues, etc. Do not use other people's photos without express written permission. Do not put the business owner's favorite song as background music on the site. Do not "borrow" another similar business design or site features.

7) Accessability. Make sure your site works cross-browser and it's standards - compliant. Make sure it works for people who are visually impaired. Just little things like naming all the "ALT" tags helps.

8) Long term planning: The site needs to be updated in order to keep visitors returning and some search engines to keep ranking it high. Who will maintain it? If it's not the original designer, does the other person know how to do updates without "breaking" the page?

9) Tracking: Site stats, referrals, and tracking customers to see who is using the site. Have realistic goals for a small business -- not 1000 hits a day probably -- but aim to keep hit numbers up. Maybe offer a coupon or something for walk-in customers who heard about the company from the Web site.

10) From a designer's point of view, one thing that should decide if you should or shouldn't do the site is money. Charge a reasonable fee but use a contract. Just because it's a nice mom-and-pop company doesn't mean they won't under pay you. Don't take the job if the pay is so small it doesn't cover expenses.

Answer 2

I always try to get into the head of the customer to see what they like and what they are trying to accomplish. I need to know the type of business as well as the personality of said business. What is the purpose of the site and who are the visitors? Is this a e-commerce, marketing, coporate, or informational site. Or is it a little of all these things. Once we have that out of the way I look at a design style. Is it going to be image heavy, artistic, flashy and/or animated. Or is it simple, clean, professional and straight to the point. What are the customers favorite colors or what are the colors of the company. Is there a logo that exist or needs to be created and how will that tie into the over look and feel. Once I have my Look and feel almost out of the way i need to know about the data and content they will be displaying. This will play a huge part in the design of the look and feel as well as the coding. Will they be providing the content like images and text. Will they want to update this content or will you and how often. Also you'll need to think about the fuctionallity . Will this be interactive. Will there be forms and other tools used to gather information and process that info. Do they need to make that conten dynamic and will they need a database. Usually by this time I have a fair Idea of the directiopn i need to go and I can start making plans. But don't forget about the business end on your part. Find out what the budget for the project is and the amount of time you have to complete it in. Also don't forget to see if they have registered the domain name, do they have hosting? do they need email with that domaine name. do they need ssl and credit card processing if they are ecommerce and how are they going to promote the site.

Answer 3

first you may make certain you're arranged do you have a corporation plan? do you be attentive to anybody interior the corporation that your stepping into? you might have contacts plus you may see if there's a prefer...