Your web site

This page gives more details about how we can help you set up your web site.

Find out about the basics on our web design page

Questions to think about before you start
Site structure
Content - what you want on your site
Testing the site
Getting a web address and going public
Telling people about your site
Updating your site

Questions to think about before you start

What is the site for?
Who would be visiting the site and why?
Is there anything specific about the likely site visitors (age, gender, ethnicity, politics, income, disability etc)?
What might this mean about the content, structure and design of the site (should it be very easy to use, have videos and lots of images, should it look corporate or friendly etc for example)?
How will they find out about the site – will it be advertised on leaflets, other web sites, on emails you send to people or through search engines?
Do you have a logo, or do you need one designed?
What might the web address be (www.yourorganisation.co.uk)?
Have you any colours for the site in mind, or are there any web sites that you think are similar to what you would like?
Do you have any images for the site? (These must be either your own, or images that the owner has given you the right to use)
Do you have permissions to from any people in the photos that you can use their images?
On the site, do you want:
1. People to be able to email you
2. A section on links to other organizations
3. An image gallery
4. Mp3 audio files
5. Videos (Flash is preferred)
6. Forms whereby people can respond to your questions
7. Shopping Cart facilities – these will need additional support/costs
How many pages will you need the site to have initially, and what would they be called (for example – home, about us, news, sales and contact us, might be good starting points).
How would people navigate through your web site – navigation can be at the top of the page, or on the left or right. – it look like ordinary text or it can look like buttons or images – it is up to you.

Some of the answers will only come clear as the web site develops, but it is useful to think about them at the outset.

Site structure

We would suggest a 5 page structure to begin with:

A 'Welcome page' with a short amount of text saying who you are and what you do - maybe with some images of your work
A 'What we do' page with more information about your work
Maybe a 'Who we are' page with photos of staff and volunteers
A 'News and events' page
A 'Contact us' page with address, email, phone details etc

Content - what you want on your site

When you are clear as to the aims of the site, the main thing to do is to start to generate the content which will fit into the site structure.

Words

It’s a good idea to keep sentences short, use bullet points and adopt a friendly style.
You won’t need much text to begin with, as people do not approach text on the web in the same way as text in a printed document.
Do use a spell checker for your text and ask somebody to read it through to make sure it is clear and easy to understand. Remember people can be impatient on the Internet – anything which is complex or confusing can persuade people to leave your site.

Images

You are also going to need some images - you might want to look at what illustrations or photos you have, and find out whether the people in them would give permission for their use on the web site.
Images from most digital cameras are too big to be used directly on a web site – they need to be resized, cropped and compressed. We will do these free of charge for a limited number of images for your site.
Scanning and resizing/optimising prints is an additional charge.

PDF

You may have information on your site as PDF’s (leaflets or annual reports etc) and whether you want these to be available on your site.
We can produce PDF’s for you from any DTP programme – Word, PowerPoint, QuarkXPress etc, and then provide links to the documents so that visitors can download them.

MP3 audio

We can convert any of your CD tracks to MP3’s – we can also edit, mix and optimize any audio materials you have to make them sound ‘louder’ and clearer.
We will upload your files and provide links so that people can download them to their computer or put an embedded audio player on your site.
We can add audio to the site to add accessibility for people who find it hard to read. This means that your information will be available to the maximum number of site visitors. You can find out more about audio information on our soundtrack page.

Video

We can link to video files on Myspace, YouTube or other sites, or we can embed a video player on your site so that people can watch your videos on your site.
We can compress you files and convert them to Flash video if you would like them to download quickly.

Do not use copyright images, audio or video, as you can be prosecuted for using these without permission.

Testing the site

Once we have a rough site structure and the content for the site, we will produce a draft site on a testing server.
This means that we can check that the site works well on different web browsers, without giving the site a web address where it could be viewed before it was ready to go public.
At this stage changes can be made to the wording, images, layout and design. The site will be designed with style sheets which allow us to quickly make changes to the style of the site as a whole – rather than needing to make changes on each page. For example, the size or colour of all headings on the site can be easily altered, or the way the text changes when a visitor hovers their mouse over a link.
Usually we will design sites using html 4.01 strict with linked style sheets – this jargon means that the site will use up-to-date mark-up so that it will work with modern browsers and will be more accessible to people with disabilities.

Getting a web address and going public

You are going to need to need to choose your domain name (web address) which describes who you are, but isn't too long for people to type into the address bar of their web browser.
You need to check that the address has not already been used – you might need to think about ‘.info’, ‘.eu’ or ‘.org’ rather than simply ‘.co.uk’, for example.
Then you will need to pay for web space – this is the online storage needed for all your files so that people can access your site on the web. This usually costs around £5 - £10 per month for this depending on the amount of storage you need – audio and video take up more space than text, for example.
We can help you set up an account with a hosting company (they will give you a login and password) and then will upload the site to the server so that the site becomes ‘live’ with its own web address, and which can then begin to be found in search engines.

Telling people about your site

Once you have a domain name and web space it is important to think about how people will find about your site (For example: email them, leaflets, link to it from other web sites etc).
We can also register your site with search engines like Google and Yahoo to help the site be found when people search for your name or the service you offer.

Updating your site

Even when you are happy with the web site and it is online and working well, you will sooner or later need to update it or make changes to the style or layout. This may because of new events on the site or changes in contact details, or because your are offering new information or services.
We can update the site for you – we only charge for the time we actually spend updating the site. We can also troubleshoot any problems that the site may have.

We hope this helps – you can find out more about our rates. If you have any further questions, give us a call or email us.

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