What you should think about before you design and develop your website?

Internet is a lifeline of businesses today and Web 2.0 has made it so interactive that it is difficult to survive without it.

Domain name

short and memorable name
relevant to the business nature
keyword in the name (unless company name is more important)
proper extension if a business is local or international

If you are planning to create an identity on the web world, choosing the right name for website is very crucial. Registering a domain name is the first step, even before you work on a website design. The name that you choose should not be so long that people find it hard to remember. Mostly domain names are relevant to the business that you are in. The domain names are either keyword oriented or brand oriented. The latter does not have any connection to the business; in fact it is aimed at creating a brand of its own like Yahoo, Google, or Amazon. Extensions like .com, .org, .net are most widely used by people while searching the internet. Hence, it becomes very important to choose a right domain name with right extension to expand your reach. If your business is more local choose for example in the United Kingdom choose .co.uk.

Web hosting

strong and reliable company
included features we need (for example PHP/MYSQL)
bandwidth limit set to our needs

Another important aspect while planning to have your own website is to get web hosting service. Companies offering web hosting, supply space on the internet not only to store all HTML files but also the data like music or videos. To have you website visible on the internet, everyone needs a hosting account. The right web host is the one which has a good customer service record, and is reliable. It is also important to check if offered bandwidth will fit our needs especially if we are planing to have heavy files on the server such as videos, music or e-books. These companies also offer ample email accounts for every website. Owners of website have multiple email accounts to avoid or limit spam mails.

Web Design & Development

unique and professional
consistent design, branding
Eye catching but balanced with content
usability and accessibility
search engine optimised

Once these are done, the website should be designed such that it should be relevant to your business. One can take professional help for designing websites. The site should cater to the specific group for which it is aimed. The loading time should be quick and webpage should take maximum 20-30 seconds to download. So, you can not have big images, or graphics which take forever to download, otherwise people will loose interest and move on to other sites.

Although, design is very important for any website to get more eyeballs but content should also be good. The content should be relevant to the site. The website should be usable, where navigation is easy. Else, it will reflect poorly in the search engine rankings. Regardless to say, the website should, on the whole, be professional looking and appealing. Web pages should be designed such that they maximize search engine placement of your site. The design should be consistent throughout, that means, in terms of color, look, and theme, there should be consistency.

Website features

blog
news
shopping cart
CMS
forum
social network

These new age websites need to be interactive and website forums, blogs are some ways to do it. Blogs not only add content to a website but they are also good for search engine optimization. Similarly, tool like shopping cart is important for e-commerce websites which makes handling customers easy.

Earlier websites used to be static, and once done, it was forever. But now, whether small, big or medium size businesses, it is important to have fresh content, blogs and latest news on the website. CMS is that important tool which lets you update your website without requiring services of any web designer. Content management systems (CMS) allow you to log in, update and thus mange the website content. It is useful for those who need to update their website regularly.