Setting up your website
Whether you are just launching an online business or are an
established small business there is now a real need to have a
company website. In 2011, 78% of UK businesses had a company
website. 77% of all UK households have internet access. 32 million
people (66% of all adults) purchased goods or services over the
internet; and 17.6 million internet users also connected to the
internet via their mobiles in 20111.
Why set up a website?
Do the maths, that’s a lot of people you could be attracting to
your business if you had a website, let alone a mobile version of
your site. But it is not a case of any old website will do, as a
consumer survey revealed that 37% of consumers have cancelled plans
to do business or spend with a small business after finding a poor
website. invention of the internet has rapidly changed how we do
business. Businesses are now no longer limited to the hours of 9 to
5 and trading solely in their territories. The World Wide Web has
extended our reach globally allowing access 24 hours a day, 356
days a year.
Having a company website can substantially help your business in
many ways:–
- communicate the benefits of your business and give insight to
what you do as a company
- opens your business to a global market 365 days a year 24 hours
a day
- promote your products and services to a wider customer
base
- can be an ecommerce site and sell your products and services
online
- improve your customer relations and service through providing
frequently asked questions (FAQs) and online forms
- generate sales leads and gather useful customer data i.e.
contact details like email addresses
- advertise employment opportunities
- build your brand and company reputation
In order to set up a website you will need three essential
components – a domain name, some web space and a website.
Domain names
The first part to setting up a website is purchasing your domain
name, which in effect will be your web address; the name people
will type to get to your website. You want something that is easy
for people to associate it with your company and easy to remember,
so it’s best if it’s either your company or brand name.
You may have to consider alternatives if it’s not available and
decide to have either .co.uk, .com, .net or .org. as your domain
extension. As a rule of thumb, if your company only trades in the
UK then .co.uk would be suitable and .com if you plan to trade
internationally. It’s always a good idea to register as many
versions of your domain name as you can afford, to help maximise
traffic to your website especially if there are other companies
around with similar names.
Registering your domain name couldn’t be simpler, there are
several companies offering this service for as little as £2.99 a
year for a single domain; though you can register your domain with
the same hosting company that provides your web space.
Web space
Put simply web space is the amount of space your website
requires on a computer server owned by a web hosting company. This
will be where all the files and elements of your website will be
held. Web space is generally measured in bytes up to gigabytes
(1000 megabytes). The majority of web hosting companies offer a
range of packages such as the web space, bandwidth, email accounts,
hosting and support.
You will not be able to have a website on the World Wide Web
unless you have the web space to host your site upon.
If you choose to hire a third party to create your website for
you, they can as part of their scope of work take the
responsibility of sourcing a web host and acquiring the web
space.
The website
The first part to building any website is deciding whether to
build the site yourself or use a third party – a web designer or
digital agency to build your website for you?
1. Building a site in-house
If you choose
to build your site in-house there are benefits especially if you
have the skills in-house. This can be much cheaper than hiring a
third party and you have the added advantage of already being
familiar with your business and can be solely dedicated to the site
build. Problems will only arise if you don’t have the skills
in-house to deal with any technical aspects of the site build and
you will have to make sure you can maintain and update your
website.
2. Building a site through a digital agency or web
developer
If you chose to use an agency or web
developer you will have to write a brief of what you require and
hope to achieve so they can scope, plan, design and build the
website for you. It does take the burden of responsibility for
creating the site away from you but will of course cost you. Some
digital agencies, can also take care of the day-to-day running of
your website as well as administer any updates and changes to the
website for you, but this will incur additional costs and can be
timely.
Branding, design, look and feel
As with everything it is always important to have planned
this out before hand. Have a clear idea of the look and feel you
want your website to adopt. You want your website to be an
extension of your company and brand. Therefore having an idea of
the logos, colour scheme and branding that you wish to use prior to
building the site is always a good idea. It’s also wise to have a
clear idea of the content that you wish to have on your site. You
have to plan your website out, so then you can have an idea of how
many pages you’ll need for your site and think of the navigation
system. Take a look at some competitor websites to give you some
ideas.
Web design and content points to consider:
- The three click rule. Make sure visitors to your site can
navigate around your site and get anywhere on your site from your
homepage in just three clicks of their mouse.
- Use the same navigation structure through the website for
consistency and it reinforces your website’s identity.
- Your website must comply with the Equality Act 2010 which means
you have to ensure your website can be accessed by anyone with a
disability.
- Don’t put music on your website unless your business is music.
Users are rarely prepared to hear music from websites they are
surfing and the shock usually makes them bounce off (leave the
website).
- Have a search function to help your visitors locate the pages
that they want on your site.
- Avoid Flash introductions. Not everyone has them installed. And
the majority ‘skip the intro’ so in essence they’re a waste of
time.
- Optimize all the images intended for your website as nothing
bores a visitor more than waiting for a website to load, they’ll
simply just leave.
Remember that your website is simply an online representation of
your business. Make sure you have professional liability insurance
in your business insurance policy as this
will protect you in case any customers or clients make any claims
against you with regards to the products or service you provide
online.
Footnotes
1Internet Access – Household and Individuals, 2011.
Office for National Statistics
