Free Resources // Discover what "having a website" really means (and how to make a ton of money)
Free Tools For Your Website – Have a Foundation. Be Unique.
If you’re browsing our website, you’re likely considering a new online face for your business – hey, we’re not dumb ;)
Whether or not our style and aesthetics meld with your business mentality and personality (we are pretty multi-versed, you know) it’s our priority (really) to see everyone make smart decisions when it comes to building a website—a utopian vision of the internet, perhaps.
The focus of any good web site development and design company revolves around solving problems with holistic solutions. The key to figuring out the right solution avenue (and solution tree) for any problem or project lies squarely in having a deep, thorough understanding of your objectives. There really is no nuance or detail too small. Every decision (should we have a horizontal navigation menu, or a vertical navigation bar?) causes a dramatic shift in presentation, interpretation, and perhaps most importantly, usability.
Of course, couple these decisions with optimal search engine placement objectives and the solution avenue continues to evolve and emerge. Miss details (and opportunities to prevent problems, instead of fix problems), and somewhat like the good old chaos theory, there’s no telling what missed opportunities lie out there.
Start with a core. The core is intentionally a simple "foundation" from which we build the plan of attack for generating a sizable return on your investment. It orients us in a direction like a compass. For an online retailer, the core is as simple as "sell our product online". For a public speaker, or consultant, the core might be "land higher paying gigs".
Next, in order to ensure success of the core objective, define your goals; have a reason to be online. When you meditate over what your goals are, for instance an online retailer may want to sell their products and create long term customers through engaging and educating them; you will develop a better understanding of what it will take to make those goals happen. For Heatbrain, one of our chief goals is to educate our customers and readers about how important a good website is. This means that we offer free web design tips and resources (such as the one you’re reading right now) so that education abounds! Now is also the time when you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Your goals shed light on your niche in your industry. Branding and corporate identity experts love to expand on niche offerings, sending out hooks to qualified, interested customers—and you should too. Identify what makes you unique, and how those features make achieving your online goals possible. If you’re selling toys made for children, are they made from renewable resources? Are they made exclusively in America? These are your key selling points, do not ignore them.
Obviously, the list of things to do and think about expands exponentially as you move from one topic to the next... Another topic for another article on web design tips
Ultimately, be leery of a web site designer or website development and design company that doesn’t bring these kinds of concepts and questions to the table. If they aren’t paying attention to the details that stand out to your customers, they aren’t going to be as effective in communicating those unique details, the life-blood of your business, to them either.
