Website Checklist

From experience we find that many of the same questions get asked by our clients when starting the process of building a website, so we thought we would create this checklist of essential things to consider when thinking about a building a website or a website redesign.

Avoiding any misunderstandings in creating a spefication for your website will inevitably lead to satisfaction all round.

The first question to consider is the business purpose of having a website. As obvious as this question seems, it is actually overlooked in favour of exciting creative designs and technical possibilities. Click here for some ideas about defining your purpose and your target audience.

The fundamental questions include:

• Domains, Registration

Domain names are a user friendly way for websites to be found. Internet addresses works on a system of numbers referred to I.P addresses, eg: 203.99.234.0. Without domain names you would have to use these IP addresses to find a website, obviously an  impractical solution.

• What if I only need email?

Email addresses are tied to domain names. If you would like your email to appear as a professional part of your business image, you will need to register a domain name regardless of your desire to have a website.

• Hosting, what is it, do I need it?

Having a car is one thing, parking it is another. Websites are similar in that they need to be essentially 'parked' somewhere. You can indeed find free parking on the street, but if you care about the investment you have made, you'd probably prefer to park it in a garage.

Having dedicated hosting for your website allows total control over your webspace, including email setup and professional hosting services will offer support for ongoing needs. Small business sites can be hosted for around $20-30 per month, and this will give you server disk space and an allocation of web traffic bandwidth. It is rare for many small business sites to scale up to dedicated servers and larger bandwidth requirements.

• Can I host my own website?

With a standing or fixed IP address you can indeed host your own website. Many organisations already run in-house emails servers and these can be extended to host the company website. Critical to going down this road however is the ability to stay on top of  configuration and security for such a setup.

• Web designer or a Web developer - what's the difference?

There are a lot of hidden things going on when you view a website. What may seem to be a relatively simple user interface may indeed contain hundreds of lines of code behind the scenes.

The scope of skills needed to build todays dynamic and interactive websites are so vast that often the tasks are broken up into various blocks. Contemporary logic dictates that we should endeavour to separate logic from content where possible.

So in keeping with this view a designer may put together the screens that will display what becomes a template for the programmers to then code into a working website.

Web design is a relatively new medium and whilst good web designers have a background in traditional design values such as typography and print technologies, they intrinsically understand this is not print design. A good web designer will also have the knowledge to be able to work in the coding and programming area as an understanding of this will inevitably lead to back design considerations.

Web developers on the other hand often specialise in the programming end of the equation and should have at least the technical rudiments of screen design skills. It is very rare to find web developers who can design to the level of dedicated professional designers.

• How long does it take to build a website?

Well how long is a piece of string? Websites are more than a collection of design screens and your address details (or at least they should be!). They are a collage of components; your company logo, your company statement, your content, the site map, the design, the underlying technology, usablility, the marketing plan, and so on...

Once you have all the pieces collected, websites can take anywhere from a week to many months dependent upon the sophistication of the requirements.

• What about FREE Websites that I see on the net?

Sure there are many free offerings on the internet, from free websites to free hosting solutions. It is not often a sustainable business model, and many new exciting ideas have inevitably diappeared.

Essentially there is no such thing as a free lunch, and your free website will generally carry advertisements and the like that you will have no control over. Again, not a very sustainable business model, but great for family holiday pics.

• Search Engines and being 'Top of Google'.

Ok, lets go back to our motor car metaphor. Owning a Ferrari does not make you Michael Schumacher. Similarly owning a website does not automatically make you top of Google.

You have to promote a tradtional off-line business and the net is no exception. Once you have a website, it is time to look at marketing that website. See our SEO pages for a complete explanation.

• What is a dynamic website?

Basically there are two types of website, one is called 'static' and the other referred to as 'dynamic'.

With a static website pages are saved documents that live on the web server and remain unchanged until replaced with a newer version. Websites that feature pages such as 'filename.html' are generally static sites.

A dynamic site is driven by a database that lives on the web server, with the content for the site being held within it. When you load a dynamic web page the server constructs the page from various pieces such as templates files and the database page content. This is known as server-side technology.
You will often see sites using 'filename.php' or 'filename.asp' or using a long line of character in the URL bar of your browser. These are dynamic sites.

• I want to move my website from its current server or hosts...

When you register a domain name you receive emails from your registrar with your account details. This is very important information and should be backed up and kept in a safe place. With these details you have access to what are known as DNS records. DNS (domain name server) records are held in a network of databases worldwide and are the method by which websites are identified with their IP address.

To move your current setup you firstly setup the new hosting account
(setup ftp access, copy your site to that space, replicate any email accounts etc), then when tested and ready you login to your registrar and change the DNS server details to that of the new host. This is known as redelegation.

Once you have considered the fundamental points W3B can advise and provide solutions to all of the necessary items concerned with building your website.

We can register your domain names, provide you with hosting, take care of delegation and redelegation, email setup and any custom requirements you have. We have dedicated designers, programmers and business analysts working hand in hand to offer you a considered answer to your website needs. 

Further to this list, providing us with

• Example website designs that you like
• A list of your main competitors' sites

will also help us to understand your vision.