The Business Side of the Website Designer
and Webmaster
Website Designers and Webmasters Business Plan
So you’ve thought it all out. You have the skills to be a website
designer or webmaster, you know what kind of business form you want
to operate, and you’ve already spoken to those necessary to get
the legal paperwork finished. However, you’re still not quite done.
There is still the matter of planning so that your business succeeds.
A business plan is a roadmap to where you want to be. It gives your
business direction so you can accomplish your goals. Without one,
you will not be prepared to make changes when they are needed, and
you won’t be able to overcome obstacles without a prior plan of
how to overcome them.
What is the purpose of your business? Whom will you sell to? What
will you sell? How will you sell it? What is your legal form of
business? Your business plan must answer those questions. Why is
the business plan so important? It prepares you for possibilities
that could happen, and helps to outline courses of action to avoid
possible problems. You will also need to include your business goals,
company physical address, phone number, and URL. Once you have all
this done, it will act as your roadmap to business success.
Website Designers and Webmasters Marketing Concepts
If you remember earlier, we had stated that marketing was a big
factor for being a website designer or webmaster. Here’s a secret
that will help you along with this concept. Websites are marketing
tools. Most of the sites online are designed to sell something.
The sales of goods and services are marketing. So how can you design
an effective site if you are not familiar with marketing concepts?
Your potential customer is going to want a site that performs a
specific action. That specific action can vary from selling something
to generating leads. If you are not familiar with marketing, then
you will not be able to design a site or page that delivers what
the potential customer is expecting from it.
Even before all this, you need to know marketing just to drive
potential customers to your site and generate sales. To accomplish
such tasks, you need to design sites and pages that rank well with
the search engines. They must also attract targeted visitors, focus
on visitor needs, keep visitors on site, and get the desired response.
When I talk of desired response, I am referring to generating a
sale, getting a referral, or clicking on a link. These are just
some of the desired options that a page or site can accomplish.
There are others, and your potential customers will tell you what
they want a specific page to accomplish.
The second secret to website design involves targeting. Who do
you want to visit the page? What kind of visitors will provide the
best return for the desired option? What would those people want?
What do they need? What solutions do you or your potential customer
offer to help them with these needs? What makes you or your customer’s
offers unique? Knowing this kind of information will help you to
design the page to target the kinds of visitors you need to accomplish
the end desired result.
Website Design and Webmasters Site Design Format
Page Goals
Now that you’ve thought about all this stuff, it’s time to start
with the design. What is the purpose of the site or page you are
going to create? Think of the goal you have for this page, or get
that goal from your customer if you are designing for someone else.
The goal must be specific, clear, and concise. Keep it realistic
and achievable. Goals like "I want to generate 1million dollars
a day in sales from this page." are not realistic. Of course, unless
you have a couple million dollars lying around to help get traffic
to that page, then it might be doable. However, I’m not talking
about the millionaire webmasters out there. I’m talking about the
common types and start-ups.
Target Market
What is you or your client’s target market? Who would buy your
goods or services? Who would visit the page or site? You need to
find as much information on this topic as possible. The more you
know about the potential visitor the better you can design the page
to fulfill the potential visitor’s needs. By filling those needs
you will get return visits and keep the visitor on site. You could
also benefit from word of mouth advertising. They could refer others
to your page and gain you additional customers in the end.
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to Table of Contents
Site
Design Format Features (Article Continues)
Other Legal Articles:
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By James R. Sanders
February 3, 2004
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About the Author
James R. Sanders is the owner of Sanders
Consultation Group Plus. He has been a webmaster and website designer since
1997. He has also been involved in self employment ventures since 1992. He is
presently a contributing author of NewbieHangout,
and has been published through WebProNews
and 4Rankings.com.
His writing is targeted to webmasters, would be webmasters, website designers,
would be website designers, self employed, or those researching information
looking for solutions to questions associated with design, business operations,
and promotion today. His goal is to provide practical information based upon
his years of experience to help webmasters, website designers, and self employed
people achieve their goals in today's competitive global market. You can subscribe
to his free newsletters at SCGP
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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 11:41 AM
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