Stage 2: Guide to designing your website.

Now you have decided to have a website, what is next? (if you haven’t read Stage 1: Website Planning, go back now).

Well, designing your website is the fun creative stage. You get to wander all over the internet looking at cool websites. Don’t go down the rabbit hole, make sure you stay on target.

1. Choose a website domain name

Usually this is pretty straight forward, well, that is if your business name has not already been taken.

Jump on Crazy Domains, or GoDaddy and type in what you would like. It will tell you if that domain name is available or not. If you are at the very start of your website journey and still researching websites, and worried that in 3-6mths time it might not be available, by all means buy it now.

If you have signed up with a designer/developer, it will pay to purchase your domain name now.

Tip – don’t go onto an international site for this search if you are wanting a local .com.au or co.nz domain name. Search on one of the Australian/New Zealand providers.

2. Choosing a website template

When a website is built, depending on the software/platform used, there is a library of templates to choose from.

Find a few websites (not 1,000 as tempting as it can be) that have a look and feel that you like and want to achieve on your site. Don’t get too caught up in being exact, as sometimes as the build progresses, you may find some templates will or won’t allow you to do certain things. eg: If you want to embed YouTube videos, and the template won’t allow for this, your designer/developer may have additional costs to your quote/invoice.

So, when choosing a template, think more along the lines of these:

  • Background colour (white and clean, or dark and masculine)
  • Menu across the top or down the left hand side
  • Booking or shopping facilities and layout

3. How to brand your website

These are a few of the things that will be needed for your website to give it the look and feel, so it belongs to your business. Branding is very important to have people recognise you immediately. It also helps with trust and professionalism.

Gather these into a Dropbox (recommended), Google Docs folder or onto a USB drive for your designer/developer.

  • Your logo
  • The PMS colours of your logo. These are industry colour system that designers and printers use to ensure your logo colours stay the same across all your marketing material. They may has for the PMS colours, or RGB break down (for websites) or CMYK break down (for printing).
  • Do you have any secondary colours, that you use to complement your logo?
  • What font is your logo using?
  • Any professional images (see “stage 2” article for more details).

Ready for the next stage?

If you thought this stage was fun, you wait until you start doing “Stage 3”.