Planning your first Website?

There are almost too many options for prospective Website owners out there. You can design a Website yourself. (Of course, such a Website won’t be great to begin with.) You can hire a Web designer to do the job for you in which case you won’t know whether you’ve gotten a great Webmaster or not until some 6 - 12 months into the contract. (And if you didn’t, you’ll have to hire an SEO and most likely pay MORE for search engine optimization than you’ve paid for the Website itself.)
The reason I’m writing this article however is the little known THIRD option. There is a firm out there that designs nice Websites and guarantees that they’ll rank well on search engines! It’s unbelievable but true, this company actually guarantees first page of Google placement (no, not as advertising but as a legitimate listing that can be found in natural search results in a category relevant to your business.).
What you really need when planning your first Website:
- advice on the best choice of a domain name for your first Website
- good Website design
- if you don’t want to write the content for your first Website yourself, content development
- your own pictures
- a Google map and directions to your place of business
- contact form
- for fancier Website you may want to include forms (that’s printable .pdf files)
- your own audio or video files incorporated into the Website
- you may or may not want, a FLASH (that’s the mini movie at the beginning of your Website)
- access to statistics if your first Website
- search engine optimization of content pages of your Website (SEO is the invisible to you code behind your Website that makes it search engine-friendly and - if done correctly! - successful on major search engines.)
Most Website design software provides for some of the above. All Website designers swear that they provide it all. Still, if you were looking on a sunny day with a candle, you won’t be able to find a Website design company that guarantees not just the design but the success of your Website on search engines.
If you’ve never had a Website you may - or may not - know that for a well-designed and well-optimized Website it takes from 6-12 months before it is indexed by major search engines. (In plain English, it takes that long before you find out whether your Website can be found on Google or Yahoo by your future customers. Please keep in mind that your future customers won’t use yours or your business’ name to find your Website Online!)
If you have not had a Website before 6 - 12 months of waiting can be managed. It’s hard to manage the disappointment however if one year later your Website still can’t be found on any major search engine.
Especially for those of you who are planning your first Website: a Website has value only if it generates interest, customers and sales for your business. A Website that’s impossible to find on major search engines - where your customers are looking for your business - is not worth having. That’s why when picking a designer for your first Website, save yourself some heartbreak and check whether he guarantees the success of your Website Online.