Steps to develop a website

Regardless of your industry, target audience, or how much advanced functionality you want, every website needs to follow certain basic steps in its development.

Registering a domain

The domain is the internet address to which you will invite people to see your website. The domain of this website, for example, is alternatenorth.com. Many websites have the same name as the company that owns them, but if the company name is long or hard to remember, a domain may be chosen that is a short, descriptive phrase or the company slogan. For example, the food company General Mills owns (among others) the domain growupstrong.com. You can also do a play on the company name like the newspaper El Nuevo Día did with their domain endi.com. The important thing is that the domain name you choose is relevant to what the company does, and easy to remember.

Registering a domain generally costs less than $25 per year, depending on the company you choose to buy from (the "registrar") and if you want the domain to end in ".com", ".org", ".us", etc. We can advise you on the available options. No registrar pays us a commission for sending them new clients, so no worries about being referred to an expensive registrar for our benefit.

Acquiring hosting

If your domain is your website's address, then hosting is the actual plot of land where it will be built. Having a domain without hosting is like saying your office is located at #123 Main Street, but without purchasing the land there: any clients who try to visit you will only see an empty space, the postal service won't be able to deliver mail to that address, etc. Hosting costs generally start at less than $100 per year, depending on how much content you plan your website to have, how much traffic it will receive, etc. Some companies offer discounts if you buy both the domain and hosting as a package. We will advise you on this as well so you can pick the best plan for your needs, and just like with the domain, we don't get a finder's fee for referring you to any host so you can be sure we'll give you our honest, best recommendation.

Developing the website content

It's no use having an address and a great big building if there's nothing inside! This is the part where time and effort must be invested to determine what kind of image you want your company to have, what you want to emphasize to your potential clients, and equally important is what things you do not want to include on the website. If you already have printed materials like brochures, business cards, or stationery, you have part of this job done already, but it will probably still require some tweaks to be presentable on the web. Website content may be classified into two categories:

Text:

A maxim in website development is "Content is king." The most important part of a good website is the information it provides. This should be easy to understand, well structured, and free from excessive industry jargon or "filler" words. Many websites fail in this regard because the owner believes that merely having a good color scheme or eye-catching images, and then filling several pages with buzzwords that explain little about what the company actually does, constitutes an effective online presence. Surely you know someone who tents to talk, and talk, and talk, but really says very little. Isn't it boring and uninteresting? Why subject your website visitors, who are really potential customers, to that kind of experience? Strive to be concise and focused in the information you wish to provide your visitor.

Besides providing the user with a more pleasant and informative visit to your website, a well-written text can addv alue to the website in the eyes of search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc. Consider, hypothetically, someone who visits your site for the first time seeking information about your company, your services, and your products. Would this person quickly understand what the copmany is about? Would he recommend the website to other friends with similar interests? This will give you an idea of what search engines will think when they find your sites, and whether they would recommend it to other users who search for related topics.

Art:

Of secondary, but also great, importance is the aesthetics of the website. Strive to find a balance between the two. For usersto have a good first impression and want to continue visiting your site, it should have a good combination of colors, images, and visual effects. Note that it is not necessary to fill the pages with clip art, Flash animation, or tons of interactive functionality to achieve this. You only need to include what is necessary to reinforce your corporate image without distracting the user from the message you want to transmit to him. A clean and lightweight design will help your pages download faster, which is very important to consider since several studies show that a fast-loading page has more credibility, generates more sales, and holds the user's interest longer than a slow-loading one.

While site content is being developed, another very important consideration to keep in mind is whether the site design will come from a pre-made template, or if a custom design will be commissioned. Sites abound that provide free or low-cost templates with images and formatting suitable for a wide variety of purposes. Their use is acceptable if there are severe constraints on either the budget or the deadline for the project, or if your compnay does not yet have a distinctive image. However, with a custom job you will be able to customize your site down to the last detail, and in some cases custom programming will help search engines rank your site higher. We recommend a unique design for almost any serious project. If you wish to use or modify a pre-made template, we can also prepare a site with it, but depending on the complexity of the template, the time necessary to modify it adequately may be almost as much as if a custom design had been requested from the beginning. This is like asking whether it is more time- and cost-effective to extensively remodel a home than to tear it down and build a new one in its place.

Launching the site

Your site's launch deserves publicity, especially if you are rolling out new online services or funcionality. You can use the information you already have on your clients (postal and email addresses, telephone and fax numbers) to let them know about the new addition to your company. Sending mass emails costs very little, but traditional mailings via the postal service are a bit more costly, so it is up to you to determine which form(s) of contact are most cost-effective. You should also make sure that, at the time of launch, your website's address is printed on all of your company's marketing materials (brochures, catalogs, business cards, etc.).

Website maintenance

Your new website, even though you may not charge your users for viewing it, is really a new service that your company is offering. Like any other service you offer, it needs to be featured frequently in promotions and kept updated to reflect new developments in the industry or in the company itself; otherwise, the site will stagnate and your potential customers may see the site's neglect as an indicator of the quality of your products or services. For many people, the website may be the first and only brochure they ever read about your company, and it should be given the same care and attention you would give to the brochures in your lobby.

Once in the maintenance phase, we can either hand over the entire website so that you and your staff can maintain it as needed, or Alternate North can continue performing maintenance and any additions or changes you request.