This is the second step in a four step process that we covered in an earlier blog post about How to get your own website.
Web Design and Development lays the foundation for your website covering the design aspects such as how the website looks and a user could interact with the website. Design includes the user experience and interaction design. Once the design is completed the development includes the giving the website form and function and complete the necessary programming to have it seen by the users on web browsers, smart phones, or mobile devices such as iPad and others.
- Any business website should get a professional design company help to get a design that is professional looking and meets your business objectives.
- Your website should offer a good set of features that are essential for your target audience, customers, and users.
- If you are a small business owner and just need an online presence then you may only need a one or two page website.
- There are services that can offer standard template designs that you can use for your business.
- Some of these services are Yahoo!’s site builder, Intuit’s Homestead, etc. We will write about these services and when and for whom these will be suitable in a separate post.
First define objectives and the purpose of your website and make sure that your website design and funcitonality matches with your business’ goals. This is usually a one time cost unless you want to update the site on a regular basis. The cost may range from few hundred dollars to few thousand dollars depending on what you want to do. You can always start small and start adding more features or services as you grow your business/website.
At NENM, we excel in providing strategic advice and help you in preparing a road map for your online initiatives. Whether you work with us or not you could benefit from our services. Please contact us to learn more about strategic consulting and web design and development services.
Related Posts:
It became apparent that there is a pattern in what the business users are looking for. Based on our dialog with various businesses, we have listed a list of typical projects that NENM could help you with:
- Digital design and online branding development including logos, ad banners
- Email and online marketing with newsletters and the advertising campaigns using tools such as Constant Contact, Emma, Vertical Response etc.
- Web site design and development – with and without content management systems, such as WordPress, Drupal, Expression Engine etc.
- WordPress blog setup/customization
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Social media strategy development and execution using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.
- Website analytics and metrics using tools such as Google Analytics, getclicky etc.
- Landing page development and leads management
- Web site hosting, backup, recovery, domain management etc.
How to use new media?
Depending on the kind of project and where your business is headed in enabling or building the web presence, we would love to work with you. Contact us for any of your project needs and no project is small for us. If you have already worked with other companies and got frustrated with poor quality/service, unreasonable costs, or unmet schedules then talk to New England New Media and see how we could be different.
Best
NENM Team
Domain Name for your business
Domain name is unique to your business. Just like a phone number and the street address, once you have a domain name it is not advisable to change it. Majority of the times the domain name that you would like to obtain and register for your website may already been taken by others. It does take a little bit of effort to research for a domain name and services like Yahoo! or godaddy.com Domain name search could help you in finding a domain name. We could work with you to find a domain name that suits your business and secure the domain name on your behalf.
Domain name - dont dos
Photo courtesy: flickr Carston Knoch
Three things to know before you decide on a domain name:
- Relevance to your business
The domain name should be relevant to your business name. Sometimes this is very easy as the domain name that matches with your business name may be available. If your business name is longer or the domain name is not available then you should look for a short relevant domain name that is inline with your business and/or the industry. - Length of your domain name
The technical limitation of the domain name is quite long. For example, it could be 30 characters or so. But, that would not be easy for people to remember or type. A good rule of thumb is to keep the domain name short and sweet; 13 characters or less is a good rule of thumb. - .Com, .Net or other
For all US based businesses it is a good idea to stick with .com domain name. If a domain name of your choice is not available then you may go for .net or .biz. But, always start looking for various possibilities within the .com domain search by keeping the first two rules, mentioned above, in mind.
Look at our how to get your website post to learn about all the things involved in getting a website for yourself or your business.
Btw, we will be able to help in choosing a domain name or help you with the process of selecting a domain name and registering it for you. As part of our service we will pay for first two years of your website domain name and will also host it for you until you decide to design a complete website.
Thanks for reading
NENM Team
Category : Blog
Why are you not getting a website? These days, almost every small business has one. If you run a small business and do not have a website then read along to learn What does it take to get a website for your small business?
There are many options; starting from a free websites that some companies offer to a brochure site that you can do yourself with a little bit of research from the Internet or with the help of your cousin or friend or from reading a book.
(image courtesy flickr)
We would like to provide our take on the process in the next couple of blog posts and we hope that you find this information useful. There are basically four steps for getting started with a website for your business.
- Obtaining a Domain Name – do a domain name look up on websites like Yahoo! or godaddy.com to see if the domain name that you are looking for is available. Typically, a domain name is one of the least expensive things that costs you about $10/year.
- Design & Development – work with a professional design company to get a design for your site and make sure that the website matches with your business’ marketing goals. This is usually a one time cost unless you want to update the site on a regular basis. The cost may range from few hundred dollars to few thousand dollars depending on what you want to do.
- Website Content – Content is king on the Internet and you would want your website content to be searchable and findable by your target users. It is important to keep the content of your website current. If your website has a content management system to start with then keeping the content current could become less stressful.
- Hosting and Management – Now, you need a place for your website. The hosting company that you chose should be able to keep your website up and functioning throughout the year. Yes, this is where you could get your own email boxes and back-up your website. This is a monthly cost and does not typically cost more than $15/month.
Hope this article gave you a basic idea of getting a website. Look for more detailed articles in the next few days. Please contact NENM if you would like to learn about our services and what you can do help you get started with your website. NENM Team http://www.NENewMedia.com – New England New Media
Welcome to New England New Media (NENM).
new england new media focuses on providing new media strategy, design and technology services to help its clients achieve their goals. We develop new media technology solutions to execute your strategy in a manner that the technology aligns with your business objectives and becomes an integral part of your business. We hope to provide information, strategy and tools that you can use for your website marketing efforts.
NENM Team
Category : Blog