Preparing Yourself for a New Web Design

July 2010 | Article by Amanda Frederick, Revolutionary Design Solutions

So you have decided to introduce the world wide web to your business? Or maybe you already have a website and want to redesign it. Which ever the case may be, you need to ask yourself some questions and know the answers to them before you meet with your designer.

If you think you're ready for a new website, then you need to prepare for it. Designing a new website takes time and careful planning. You cannot rush a web design. If you rush it you will either get a mediocre website that does not really represent you and your business or it will be a very expensive website. Designers charge more for rushed projects.

Do your homework. When you meet with your designer, they are going to ask you a lot of questions that you need to be prepared for. So make sure you do your homework about your new website. What do you want to tell your visitors? What do you want them to see on your website?

1. Research. Go online and look at other websites for ideas on how you want your website to look. Try to view websites that have a similar line of business as yours and write them down. Take note of what you like and what you don't like. Visit your competitor's websites. What are they are doing that you should also be doing? How can you make your website better than theirs? What do you do that they don't? These questions are questions that your designer will ask you when you meet. Your designer will also help you figure out how you can make the site better than your compeition, but it is always a good idea to come to the table with some ideas.
   
   Who is your target market? What kind of visitors are you expecting on your website (income, interests, gender, age)?
   
   
2. Type of Website. You know you want a website, but what kind of a website do you want? Are you selling something? Do you want to tell something about yourself, company, orgainization or another person? How about teaching something or entertaining someone? Whatever the reason may be, there is a type of website for you.
   
   Portfolio Website. A Portfolio Website is a website that contains an artist's portfolio of work. The artist can be any creative professional (artist, muscian, teachers, writers, etc.) that needs to showcase their work. These websites usually contain several pages including, but not limited to about me, contact, gallery, artist statement, home, etc. Usually portfolio websites have a web address of http://www.yourresume.com
   
   Personal Website. A Personal Website is a website designed for a specific person that cantains information about the person, photos and videos. A lot of movie stars have personal websites. Usually personal websites have a web address of http://www.peronalweb.com
   
   Commercial Website. A Commercial Website is a website with a sole purpose of selling products or services. A store selling apples would have a commercial website. Usually commercial websites have a web address of http://www.yourstore.com
   
   Organizational Website. An Organizational Website is a website that advocates an individual's opinion or a group's point of view. This type of website is where people with similar interests come together and communicate with each other usually through message boards or chat. An organizaiton such as The Yellow Banded Rabits who believe rabits will one day rule the earth would have an organizational website. Usually organizational websites have a web address of http://www.yourorganization.org
   
   Educational Websites. An Education Website provides information about an educational establishment or to present information in an educational manner. Colleges, schools or information on the life cycle of a Bumble Bee would have an educational website. Usually educational websites have a web address of http://www.yourschool.edu
   
   Entertainment Websites. An Entertainment Website provides entertainment and amusement. A website that provides card games, online gambling or online suduku would be considered an entertainment website. Even websites like YouTube are entertainment websites. Usually entertainment websites have a web address of http://www.funinthesun.com
   
   News Websites. A News Website is a website that provides information about current events and they are dedicated to providing news and commentary. Channel 6 News would have a News Website. Usually news websites have a web address of http://www.yournews.com
   
   Blog. A Blog Website is a website that is used to log online readings or to post online diaries. They may include forums or chat rooms. An artist can have a blog website and post information on their thoughts and feelings, information about being an artist, etc.
   
   Hybrid Websites. A Hybrid Website is a website that combines features from the many different kinds of websites. For example, this site you are visiting right now, Revolutionary Design Solutions is a Hybrid Website. We have listed our services, our portfolio and an information section (which you're viewing right now).
   
   
3. The Budget. OK, now it's time to discuss a scary question. Do you have a budget for your new website and what is it? It is extremely important for you to know what your budget is and for you to convey that to your designer. If you don't have a budget, your website can get expensive fast. If that's ok with you, then go on to #4.
   
   Unfortunately for most businesses, the budget is very important. So is having a great website. That's why you need to figure out how much you are willing to spend on a website and tell your designer. That way they don't go over the budget which would be wasting time and money on both sides. If a designer knows how much you can afford for a website, they can better manage their time.
   
   What does that mean? Designers have to design the website first. Then they have to build the website. The creative part takes the longest and costs the most. Depending on your budget, the designer can figure out how much time to spend on the design either creating something that can be built fairly fast or something that is a little more complicated and cooler looking.
   
   Don't be stingy on your budget. Yes, most businesses have a budget but don't be too stingy with it. A website for your business is very valuable. Just being able to put that address at the bottom of your business card or wherever is a sign of your status. But so is the look of the website. If you aren't willing to pay a little money for it, don't bother. A bad website is worse and more damaging than no website at all.
   
   So now you're asking what should my budget be? How much does a website cost? That all depends on what you want on your site and how much you're willing to fork out for a website. Figure out how much you can afford and then discuss it with your designer. They will want to know all the details of what you want on your site before they answer yes or no to accepting the project. Keep in mind, that just because you have a budget, doesn't mean that the designer will use up the whole budget. You may say your budget is $800 (this is an example). The designer might say "Well guess what, I believe I can do it for $650". But they might also say that they can do it for exactly $800, or they may say that they think it will cost more like $1000.
   
   If the designer believes that it will cost more, they should explain why. After hearing the explanation you need to either expand your budget to cover the higher price, or you need to look at making your new site a little simpler. Or you also have the right to find another designer. Every designer is different. Some are deserpate for work, some have certain budgets themselves, and some are just too busy to accept a low bid. After having said that, keep in mind that if you go with the desperate designer, what kind of work are they doing for you and why are they desperate?
   
   
4. The Content. You need to collect ALL the materials that you want on your website and put them on a flash drive or a CD. If you don't have pictures scanned, either scan them or bring them with you. If you don't have a way of scanning images or documents, every designer knows how and has a way of scanning them for you.
   
   Remember that any images you provide your designer need to be excellent quality images. If you provide a small, blurry and scratched image, you will get a small, blurry and scratched image on your website. Designers can remove scratches for $$, but blurry and small cannot be turned into top quality images. Usually it is best to let the designer fix your images for you, guaranteeing that you will have the best images on your website. If you don't have images, stock photography can be a good idea.
   
   If you are going to provide images to your designer, you should scan your images at 300 dpi and provide the largest size possible of any digital pictures from a digital camera. DO NOT resize the pictures to get a larger image. If small is what you have, then go with it.
   
   Remember to include any word, PDF or excel files that you want on your website. External files such as word or PDF files can be clicked on and downloaded by the visitor. Links, images, documents, brochures, videos, flash animation, artwork, logos and any other company branding need to be provided as well.
   
   Logos and company branding. Please provide your logo as the original file that is not currently on the website such as a .eps, .ai, or .psd file. (These are Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop files). Or if you have .tiff or .jpg – Just something that is better quality (larger file size) than the one that’s on the internet currently. You want your logo to look great, and if you provide a low quality image...It won't look great!
   
   Text. Any text that you want on your website needs to be written out exactly as you want it to appear on your site. Spell check it, read it over and make sure there are no errors. Every page that you want on your site needs to have text and it is your job as the client to provide it.
   

Things to Keep in Mind. Some things to keep in mind as you go through the designing process with your designer is that Web Design is NOT Print Design.

1. Custom Fonts vs. System Fonts. Every computer has a book of fonts installed on it and the fonts vary from computer to computer. However there are about 18 fonts that are exactly the same on every computer because they came pre-installed. These 18 fonts are called System Fonts and are known in the web community as being web safe fonts. This means that if a web page is written in one of these 18 fonts, every computer that views that page will see the same font. If a custom font is used on a web page it is possible that someone might not have that font installed and they will not see the page as it was intended to be seen.
   
   For this reason, any text on your website must be written in a System Font. However there are exceptions to this rule. Custom fonts can be used, but the text has to be turned into an image to guarantee that the vistor will see the font as you intended them to see it. However, images take longer to download so you do not want to create an image of a huge block of text. Large blocks of text should be in a system font. Any text in the header of your website can be a custom font or single words or phrases in the body of your website can be a custom font.
   
   The image below displays the standard System Fonts
   
   
   
   
2. Web Safe Colors. Web Safe Colors are similar to the system fonts. In the old days (only about 15 years ago) computer monitors could only dispaly a limited number of colors (256 to be exact). With today's technology, monitors are capable of displaying millions of color. This rule isn't as important as the system font rule, but it is worth mentioning.
   
   Because some monitors might not be able to display millions of color, some thought should go into the use of color on a website. There are 216 colors that are guaranteed to be able to be displayed on every monitor. These colors are shown below. If a color other than the ones shown below is used, there is a possibility that the viewer will see a different color because their monitor does not display the one intended to be seen. However, most people nowadays have fairly new monitors. Designers should not go crazy choosing a bunch of colors not on the list, but they should not strictly follow the rule either.
   
   
   
   
3. The 10 page Rule. Google! The all powerful search engine. The one! Guess what? In order for you to get listed on Google's search engine, you to have at least 10 pages. Otherwise you won't get seen on Google. What does that mean for you? It means that you need to come up with at least 10 pages or more for your website. Think that's hard? Not really! Index (home page), about, contact, site map, links, services, page or two off of services, products, page or two off of products, order info, company guarantee...the list is endless. Your designer can help you come up with at least 10 pages if you need help.
   
   But don't forget! Google isn't the only search engine out there. Bing is the next big thing!

Is Your Website Design Outdated?

July 2010 | Article by Revolutionary Design Solutions

Congratulations! You have had your website up and running on the Internet for 4 years now. But is it looking a little outdated? Maybe that's because it is and its been 4 years since you've had a new design. We're not talking about a content update! We're talking about a full blown brand new design.

Did you know that you should have a new design about every 2-3 years? Convenient for a design company to come up with that number huh? Nope. Statistics show that businesses need to update their websites with a new design at least every 3 years. The Internet business is exploding and in order to stay with the current technology, themes, and programming you should have a new design at least every 3 years. You don't want your business to look outdated do you? You don't want someone to visit your site and say "That's so yesterday'!" do you?

But you don't want to change your design too much too often because you don't want your customers wondering if your site will be different every time they visit your page. Changing your design too fast can communicate instability (sooner than 12 months).

Updating site content on the other hand should be done on regular basis. Do you want people to frequent your site more often? Then you need to update the site content in order to get people to come back more often. A general rule of thumb is that all the site's content should be reviewed and updated about every 6 months. Don't leave outdated news up forever. Put up new news. Change a few pictures here and there.

So...6 months update site content...2-3 years...get a new design!

Which Internet Browser Should YOU be Using?

July 2010 | Article by Revolutionary Design Solutions

Let's face it. Most people don't know they have an option when it comes to Internet browsers. Did you know there are other browsers out there than just Internet Explorer or the old dinosaur Netscape Navigator? And let's not forget Safari for the Mac users.

There are currently a lot of different browsers out there on the Internet free for download, but only about 5 of them are the most popular and quite frankly the only ones you need to worry about right now. If you really want to read the whole list of browsers you can visit Wikipedia's article. But we're here to discuss The Big 5.

It doesn't matter whether you're a PC (Windows) or Mac user. There are other choices for you than the standard.

The following list of browsers are NOT ranked. They're just listed.

1. Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corporation
   Currently only available to Windows users, which make the Mac world hate IE.
   
   Download Internet Explorer for Windows (comes pre-installed on PCs)
   
   
2. Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Foundation
   Open source browser currently available for download to both Windows and Mac users.
   
   Download Mozilla Firefox for Windows
   Download Mozilla Firefox for Mac
   Download Mozilla Firefox for Linux
   
   
3. Safari, Apple
   Currently available for download to both Mac and Windows users.
   
   Download Safari for Windows
   Download Safari for Mac (comes pre-installed on Macs)
   
   
4. Opera, Opera Software
   Currently available for download to both Windows and Mac users.
   
   Download Opera for Windows
   Download Opera for Mac
   Download Opera for Linux
   
   
5. Google Chrome, Google
   Currently only available for download to Windows users.
   
   Download Google Chrome for Windows

Netscape Navigator was mentioned above briefly and used to be one of The Big 5 and still is in some rights. However Netscape Communications decided to discontinue the Netscape branded software. They currently recommend using Firefox. You can still download old versions of Netscape Navigator by visiting The Netscape Archive, however the old versions of Netscape are no longer supported and are outdated to new technology that is being developed in the design and computer industry. This is not to say that people don't use it anymore. They do, and they should not.

Our advise is to download several different browsers and try each one out. Which one performs faster for you? Which one is simpler to use? Which one looks better and which one feels better when you're using it? Each browser performs differently on each computer. So when Sally says that Safari is better and Joe says that Opera is better, they're both right.

E-Newsletters 101

July 2010 | Article by Revolutionary Design Solutions

E-newsletters can be sent weekly, monthly, quarterly, or sporadically. They are an excellent way for businesses to communicate on a regular basis with customers through e-mail. E-newsletters keep the company name, brand, products, and services in the customer's mind.

E-newsletters are usually graphically formatted in HTML (website form) but they can also be plain text. You should provide the option to your customers with a choice between an HTML newsletter or a plain text newsletter.

They can contain some kind of topical news, sale offers, info about new products and services, upcoming events and links to articles or products online. E-newsletters should also always contain company information, the date, instructions on how to unsubscribe from the newsletter, a link to the company website and links to the company's privacy policy (inform the customer's what you will do with their e-mail).

What's In a Name

July 2010 | Article by Revolutionary Design Solutions

Need a domain name (aka your dot com address) for your business or personal site? The first thing to do is to see if your business name is available as the address. Start by typing in the name of the business or person. Unusual business names or personal names create a fast domain name selection.

Domain Name Look up

But for businesses or people with common names, the chances are that the domain is already taken. In this case, it's time to get creative. Sometimes just adding a city name or state that your business is located in gets you your address. Sometimes abbreviating words in the address helps.

If you're really stumped, you can use a domain name generator to aid in the process of choosing a domain name.

Things to keep in mind. When creating a domain name for your business there are some important things that you should keep in mind.

1. People misspell words, so if you have a hard name to spell, they will misspell it. Try to keep big and complicated words abbreviated or completely removed from the domain name.
   
   
2. Keep it simple. Complex and long addresses are hard to remember. If you keep your address short and simple, people have a better chance of remembering it. Take for example, a poster that you have advertising your business. You have stamped your domain name at the bottom. If its too long, how is someone going to remember it all the way back to their computer?
   
   
3. Make sure that your address www.mysite.com is not a similar business at www.mysite.org or www.mysite.net. If it is, people might accidentally type the wrong ending and end up on someone else's business. That's free advertisement for your competition.
   
   
4. Make sure that your business name isn't already taken in your area. You don't want to have 2 different Sam's Ice Cream Shops in the same town do you? Or do you want the same name for a design studio as someone? Sometimes it's hard to avoid things like this, but by doing a little research you might be able to prevent something like this from happening.
   

Once you have chosen a domain name and you're sure that nobody else has it and it's not already regestered, it's time to register it. It is important that you register your domain as soon as possible so that no one else takes it. Domain name registrations usually run anywhere from about $10 to $35 a year. Click here to see our Domain Name services.