Internet Business 101

Internet Business 101 : Website Design Primer

Website Design Primer
Author: Jason A. Martin

The way your website looks and feels says a lot about your company (and/or you). A good website is one that looks professional and is easy to use. Throughout the past eleven years I have developed, visited, and consulted on well over 100,000 sites. These websites can generally be broken down into a couple categories: extremely poor, works of art from a graphic artist, and great sites.

The job of your website is to convey your message in a concise and clear manner while looking pleasing to the eyes. If your website misses any other this, it is a failure. Never put message and usability above graphical design. Again, if your website looks like a work of art or has the latest technological breakthroughs but is hard to use, you will fail. Time and time again, websites such as Amazon and Ebay are used as a reference for good site design. Thus, I will use them here. If you look at each site you will notice that they are pleasing to the eye but not high-end graphical creations. Additionally, they are very easy to use and the user always knows where he or she is on the site.

That is the finished product—which we will discus in other articles. To get to that point, we need to rewind to the beginning. Let’s start out with some basics. In my opinion the best website design environment is Dreamweaver by Macromedia. I would encourage you to visit their website to learn more about the program. Creating web pages, building the site and keeping track of everything is a snap with this program. For graphic creations, I use Photoshop by Adobe. It is hands down the best tool for this around. Together Photoshop and Dreamweaver is the powerful 1-2 punch that will let you make great websites.

Should you not be a design wizard or rather not bother, you have a couple options available to you that will work. First, you could purchase a template. A template is basically a webpage design done for you which will allow you to simply plug in your data. Templates normally work well for small websites. When buying a website template, make sure that the PSD (Photoshop file) is included. Templates normally run from $30 on up and a quick search for “website templates” in your favorite search engine will yield a plethora of results. I don’t recommend you bother with templates for larger sites but if you have a couple page mini-site to do, they work great. One place to purchase your website templates from is Template Monster. Their prices are very reasonable and the selection is second to none.

Another option is to hire a web designer, which can be tricky because there are web designers of all sorts of talent levels on the Internet. Most of them are not pros when it comes to usability and marketing. Many would like to think so but in reality they lack the top level talent in this area. Being educated as much as possible in the area of website usability and marketing will help make this a smooth process. Think of a web designer as an artist who paints pictures. You would expect the artist to be able to make lovely pictures. However, would you expect him to also know the ins and outs of the business end of selling artwork? Of course you wouldn’t. Sure, some will know it all and those are far and few between. Remember, making a website does not qualify you in any way as far as usability or marketing goes. That type of knowledge only comes with lots of experience associated to actually running the websites daily.

Not all web designers are honest. Many simply buy website templates and pawn them off as their own to unsuspecting clients. It can be impossible to know if this is happening to you but here are some ideas to make your hiring experience a good one.

• Hire a designer based in the USA only. This is my personal preference because of the legal possibilities. I have hired people over the years in many countries so don’t think I am saying only USA based workers are worth it. More on this in a minute.
• Complete a work contract, in writing, and have it signed and mailed to you via postal mail. If possible, have it sent on a company letterhead or notarized if an individual is doing the work. The contact should state that the work being done for you is an original work, that it is not based on any web templates, that you retain full ownership and anything else you feel is necessary.
• Why USA only? Legal recourse mainly. If you are taken advantage of by someone in the USA, it is easier to get a legal remedy. I typically try to do all my first time business with USA based companies, unless a colleague recommends someone outside of the USA. Of course, this is up to you.
• It is a well known fact that designers in parts of Russia and India do things that are not proper. There are many people in these countries that do great work but you need to be cautious when dealing with people in these countries (as you should always anyway).
• Look for previous work and contact the website owners to verify. An important step to ensuring everything you are being told is accurate.

The prices for web design work are all over the board. It is really like buying art in some ways. It is best to shop around and know what you want (as much as possible) beforehand. One good idea might be to surf the Internet for sites you like. When you come across one, email the owner and ask them who designed their site. Many owners will probably ignore you but like many things in life, it is a numbers game. Contact enough owners and one or more is bound to reply with the information you desire.

To recap, you have three main choices for designing your website:

• Design it yourself completely from scratch.
• Purchase a website template and modify as needed.
• Hire a website designer to do it for you.

If you remember one thing from this article, let it be this: Always get it in writing. Never do business with a simple oral agreement or some emails. Take the time to put things in writing. Should the unfortunate event come, having the agreement in writing will make your life easier. In your written work orders put in terms for cancellation and scenarios for when things go wrong.

Jason A. Martin has been conducting business on the Internet for 11 years. He is a free-lance writer on many topics and is currently working on obtaining a degree in Journalism and Law.

His official blog can be viewed at: Jason A. Martin

©2005 Jason Andrew Martin LLC

If you found this article infomative, link to it on your website!

Have an idea, comment, or want to see something covered that is missing? Fill out our comments form now!