As a yoga teacher or massage therapist it can be difficult getting the right domain name for your new website.

Choosing a domain name would seem easy but unless you are a famous yoga teacher like Seane Corne  (blessed with an unusual name) and folks are looking for you by name, it’s harder.  Many catchy names are gone.   If your name is more straightforward like– SusanJohnson, that’s gone! They were bought years ago, some by speculators who were I admit-really smart.  Names like”care,” see care.com, or “home+anyword”  or “pets+anyword”  were like owning property on 5th Avenue in New York City.

It’s easy-here’s a link to check available website (aka “domain”) names.  This is a helpful too for this because you will be given  multiple suggestions of close names when the one you want is not available.

What to do if the name you want is taken:

Common tricks are to hyphenate,  “Blissed-OutDaySpa.com” or add location “Blissed-OutSpaBoston.com.”  Honestly it can be difficult to get the right name for a yoga teacher  or massage therapist website.  Also it’s BEST if your domain name has a popular search term for your industry in it- such as “yoga” or “massage” if those are your industries.

Many yoga teachers or massage therapists might want to just use their name-but it’s best if you can also work into the domain name-the appropriate term like “SusanJohnsonMassage.com” or  “JonesChiropracticLudlow.com.”  As the point is not to just have folks who already have your business card or contact, who know your name-but to attract new clients via the search engines.  That’s called “organic search,” organic search brings in brand new clients-it’s basically free advertising, and it’s very important for small business.  For example I’m new to area or wanting to start yoga class, I live in Hamden, I would most likely google “yoga class Hamden.”  If your business pops up in my my “organic search,” I may call up your yoga studio!

Why Highlighting your Location is Crucial:

The primary search engine to rank well on, hopefully first or at least second page is Google of course!  If you can’t get your service into your domain  name, the next best is to optimize your webpages to include common terms.  As well you want to include your town name in your pages often enough to rank well-but not so much to be obnoxious to a real reader.  A tip is to include it in the footer which should appear on every page. Your location is crucial to appearing high in searches, for example you won’t be able to rank well just for the words “massage therapy” but if you can get “massage therapy Brookside (town name) in several places you are very likely to rank well.  As a local business owner you are seeking clients near you so this is important.

Or if you name yourself as a business such as “HealingArtsMassage.com” that’s great and the website should be optimized for keywords potential clients would use, and again the town  and surrounding town names.   Having a few articles also really helps, as you can include information that is helpful to potential customers; for example if you teach yoga and pilates, and are certified in Reiki, write some helpful articles-each one highlighting your keyword (skill.)  So in this case write at least 3 posts or articles on covering each specialty. You will most likely rank higher than someone with the same skills who justs  lists them on a page.

Feel free to contact me  for further info.  I have a background in holistic health myself and would enjoy working with you, see my website design page.

Namaste, Kala

So if you already have “enough” clients, don’t want or need more money, and don’t want to expand your business then go “old school.”  No website, nah, not for you.  I did mention to some, that their competitors, listed in the same directory had websites. But you can lead a horse to water right?  Here are some misconceptions small business owners may have about hiring a web designer and getting a website professionally designed.

WEBSITE MYTHS:

1. Search engines like Google,  will automatically find my site. And people will find my business.

2. Hiring a  professional web designer is too expensive and unnecessary

3. I can make a decent site myself.

4. I’ve got a friend/cousin/kid who’s a computer whiz and can put one together for me.

5. I’ll maintain the site the folks in #4 created for me.

OK not so.  I’ll give some analogies as to why this thinking is not best if you want to earn more money for your small business:

Many of us cook, some of us cook well.  But most of us would not try to bake our own wedding cake.  We could do it!  But we’re crazy busy at that time (like every small business owner) and it’s really important-JUST LIKE YOUR BUSINESS.

Or making our own clothes-again, I can do that, I have a sewing machine, but the level of skill required is pretty high, so we don’t usually sew our own business outfits- yes we could learn, there are patterns, but it won’t be the best most likely.  So let’s go through myths 1-5 with facts.  Remembering that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, can apply to doing your own website.

Why Hire A Web Designer?

1. Search engines like Google, will automatically find my site.

Not really, your site most likely will be buried if you do it yourself.  Unless, it is SEO, search engine optimized and recently so, it could sink to the bottom of the pile. And no one doing what’s called “organic search,” will find you.  Say you are a house-painter/carpenter or any local small business, with a self-designed website.   When possible client types in “housepainter your town” you should come up!  But if your site is old, designed from a poor template and not optimized you might occur on the 8 or worse 15 page.  No one, goes that far when looking for local services.  So just having a website is not enough.

2.  Hiring a  professional web designer is too expensive and unnecessary. 

There are affordable web designers.  Look for individual, freelance designers, as opposed to larger companies. Especially if you are a small business and definitely if you are a solo entrepreneur, you don’t need a big bulky and expensive company.  They have large offices, big staff, newest equipment, support staff, things like medical/health expenses and so on.  All of this is very expensive and adds to their cost which of course is reflected in pricing.

Read the other questions to see why hiring a professional web designer is not “unnecessary,” We’ve already covered that getting found by new clients (the ones you want) requires that your site is in the first few pages of search engines.

3.  I can make a decent site myself.

You can most likely make a “decent” website yourself.  But just as for your wedding or buying a home-is “decent” ideal?  See the bottom of my home page for some companies that have templates for small business owners who want to create their own website.  Homestead is a good one, and it’s costs what it would cost to hire me to do it for you! Plus you still have to do the work without compete knowledge of, SEO tactics that work, keywords etc.  The drawbacks to a “decent” or good enough site with these template companies-is that it will most likely look quite generic!  And there are issues beyond appearance that you may not cover, simply because you don’t have the information.

4.  I’ve got a friend/cousin/kid who is into computers and can put one together.

Yes if one is on a real budget, find a friend, or family to begin with.  I’m assuming though they are not professional and then see #3 above.  And will they maintain it for you.  Will your son remember to add updates, and security fixes, five months down the line? See #5.

5.  I’ll maintain the site the folks in #4 created for me. 

I have a dear friend who has a website, designed by an acquaintance.  But she has lost access to it!  She cannot add information on events she’s doing, and new services.  The “friend” didn’t’ give it to her, or show her how to do updates.  This is like getting locked out of ones’ own house!  Really unpleasant.

If you hire a professional web designer, they should care enough about you as client and their reputation to have provided you with information you need to add info.   See why I recommend WordPress as the CMS (content management system) for small business owners.  I use WordPress because it’s easy for clients to update  text and images for their website.

There are so many websites out there, where the owner created it 5 or 6 years ago, using an outdated, limited template, see my post on outdated websites.  And it looks awful now.  As in that time, visual standards among other things-have changed.  It’s hard for an owner to maintain the look or design of the site.  Remember clients surfing the web, see lots of sites.  Especially certain groups: younger consumers, more affluent etc., they have a clear, unspoken expectation of a business website.

If you’d like a free evaluation of your old website, contact me see below, again it’s no obligation.   I work with clients in the U.S. and locally in Northampton, Amherst, Springfield regions of Western Mass.

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 Is your website outdated and ineffective? Does it need an update?

A website that’s not updated in look or in content is a turn off-and potential customers will leave.  But worse they may never find your site when searching for your exact service because an old site is not properly SEO’d (search engine optimized.)

Yes I know it was cheap to build, you used a program perhaps and put it together yourself or had a friend do it.  I understand-as a small business owner or self-employed person, you need to save money.  I’ve used many programs over the years when creating websites for my own small business purposes.

Now I’ve put in more than 18 months of study on the technical aspects of website design and setup.   After leaving my job I got more serious about melding my extensive fine art and design training with the technical and always changing aspects of creating websites. I studied best practices, options such as Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress. There are tons of options for the small business owner who needs a website update.

I’m an affordable website designer based near Northampton, Massachusetts, I’ll share some tips, that your competitors may already be aware of.  And trust me, customers surf the web and are familiar with and used to various website styles and presentations. They come to  your site with expectations in mind.

If your website was it created 4 or more years ago it may be in need of a redo in layout.

a) narrow strip of a page

1. Is your content centered in a narrow strip or worse- off to the side of the screen leaving blank space on one edge? This style seems to have been popular because in the early years screen resolution often left some text cut off.  This is a rare problem now.  Too narrow wastes valuable space! Studies have shown people dislike having to scroll down a page (a) isn’t too bad, but it’s relative to the page’s length which is quite long, so lots of scrolling for viewer to do.  If the page were short the above would be fine.   Tip:  The area "above the fold" the area they see upon arriving MUST contain the most important info, and be clear and eye-catching or you may lose them within seconds.   A good web-designer will be able to check if this is working on various browsers for you.  You do want a balance of text, graphics (images) and white space on page and that takes some training to judge.

(b)not enough contrast of text to ground

3. Is there good degree of contrast between text and background, (ex. b.)  This is actually a newer problem with the rise of minimalism many sites are using grey text on white.  Often this presents a challenge for the reader.  That is why black and white is standard-the highest degree of contrast makes for ease of use.  This doesn’t negate using other colors or grey just be sure there is enough contrast, so folks aren’t  squinting! Tip: this contrast is value not color for example light yellow on light green is not good contrast.  It’s about dark and light difference.

4. Does your website have a “page footer” area? It should and it can contain — copyright, business address and contact info.  A date of last update is helpful but not mandatory.  The footer is important as it can also repeat keywords that your customers would be searching for.  That one more repetition, of say “dry cleaners Holyoke” may be what puts you on page one rather than page 2. Many people don’t bother to visit pg. two when doing searches!

5. Does the use of color and graphics support rather than distracts from the site? A few years ago and in the hands of inexperienced designers, this was very common.  Websites that need to be updated often have little animated gifs-dancing icons, moving across/up/down the page.  This can distract your viewer.   Visitors are on your site for a purpose.  Meet that customer need or answer their question and you may have a new or returning customer.  See an example at– vacaway(dot)com, lots of different colors, movement and font changes.  That would be fine if that really supports the purpose and serves the customer experience.

6. Does your site have music that auto plays? This again is rarer now.  A big no no.  I learned this the hard way as I initially thought adding music to my own site would set an “ambience” for the viewer. Well several problems-

• location-the website visitor may be in a library, in bed with partner asleep or a work, all places that sudden music can be annoying.  Worse if you make the icon to stop play hard to find-I’ve shut off sites for that reason alone.
• the music choice alone may be a turnoff before they get to your content

Best is to if you really want music, include noticeable control buttons and dont’ have it on auto-play.  If you think about it you have probably had that experience of bumping into music online and finding it obtrusive.

Hope these tips about updating a website are helpful.  There are many more web design best practices that are really important to be aware of.   Hopefully your current site is created so you can do updates easily such as adding content or current events.  If you decide to hire and want an affordable website designer contact me and get a free website evaluation.

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How can you get your small business to first 2 pages of Google? Hmmm.

Well I’m so psyched.  I-

Got my brand new website to pg. 6 of Google in only 8 days!* I”m gonna aim for pg. 2.  This out of “About 3,290,000 results.”

Let’s do this for your small business site, it’s all about SEO, search engine optimization.  Here are the basics of search engine optimization, I’m assuming you are a small business owner or an entrepreneur, self-employed and you want customers???!!

It isn’t rocket science but it took me 18 months of research and learning to get to this point, (hire me save yourself time-use your time to do what you are expert at-running your business!)

Some key things to rank well on Google-and they are the big boy, the others follow. Key things are:

1. Have fresh updated content on your website
2. Have helpful content that is “deep” not just 1 or two pages
3. Research “key words” that fit  your business & know how to use them and which are worth using!

Let’s break down these three search engine optimization basic points:

Have Fresh content:

to rank well on Google it helps to have a blog, as part of your site.  To that blog you can add content regularly (a couple times a week is good.)  The search engines like to see fresh content, and ongoing updated-that would imply you are engaged with whatever business or service you are providing right?  so they want to send searchers, ie. customers, to those sites.  See part 3 for more info.

Helpful content that is “deep”

Google in the last month (early 2011,) redid their algorithms (huh?) to try and push down sites that are filled with, scraped or rehashed or simply not “deep” content.  So in my months of reserve for making my own sites. I found out there are things called “article spinners” basically software that you put an article in and it just spins out content.  I admit I tried one online and hated it!  It works by filling in synonyms and you get a watered down version of the original-but it can do this like many times like 40 times or so.  Of course you get to a point that it just starts sounding dumb or incomprehensible.  It’s a time saver and I”m sure some internet marketers are using it well and profiting.  Many folks were using these and putting this out there to build links from one site to thiers and for quick content.  You can see though how it fills the internet with lower quality content.  The defense would say well if folks find my content on “XYZ.com” site and another person finds me on “EFGInfo.com” then what’s the problem? Iv’e provided content to different audiences.”

Well I dont’ use article spinners and found the reasons against stronger, so back to our search engine optimization basics-Google is attempting to weed this out.  WHY?  Don’t you hate it when you want info-you have questions on a topic and the first 5 sites listed have low quality, rehashed content or are only wanting to sell you products without giving helpful info?  Granted if you are new to the topic you may not know that’s the case.  But check it out in an area you are expert in.  You might find it stuffed with lower quality content-pushing out sites that are more authoritative.  This tends to happen in searches of areas that are potentially lucrative.

Search Engine Optimization Basics-Keyword:

This is most important, researching keywords that relate to your business. Then using them on your small business website in a way that is natural but gets teh attention of the “bots” that are roaming the web to figure out your search engine ranking.  This seems pretty straightforward right?  A key free tool for this is found here: https://adwords.google.com, you need to sign up for a Google account, but it’s free.

The problem with the obvious keywords:

So say you are a day spa in Boston, you think of the words that folks would use to find you: such as “massage” or “pedicures” or “day spa?”  The problem with this is that those key words pull up millions upon millions of websites.  They are too general too broad.  Also the age of your website is said to play a part (I have not found this to be a barrier though) but the older website will tend to rank better.

The process then is to dig deeper for what are called “long tail key words.”  Picture a dinosaur-long neck and long tail.  The neck part represents the obvious key words-in our example “massage.”  As you spend time doing the research (or hire me!) you come up with “Swedish massage Boston.”  Not really long tail but longer-more specific-someone who searches so specifically has an agenda! They want something-they want to get this info/service or product or they would not be so specific-those are the customers YOUR BUSINESS wants.  A truly long tail search would be “Swedish massage Parkhill Boston, MA.”  So don’t aim for the super big Key words-they may be out of reach.  Instead focus in you website keywords, tags and content on these smaller long tail key words.

Next Steps for SEO Basics:

More questions book a consult or have me build or redesign  your website.  I feel confident that if  you are a small business with a local or regional focus, that I can definitely get your business website up to page 1 or two on Google!  It usually takes a few weeks to months and would require ongoing maintenance…. Be int ouch to find out more.  See my Contact page.

*This is the keyword phrase I chose to target in Google: “website design northampton” by the time you see this perhaps my ranking will be higher, check it for yourself.

There are many good reasons to redesign your website:

• To update website with new services, products, or better images
• To make it look more “modern” and up-to date, it represents your business online
• Get better web site performance & higher search engine rankings
• To add new website features-like a newsletter, FAQ’s or blog pages
• To address changing industry trends that competitors are targeting

Your website is the primary means of visibility and growth of your business.  Most people now do a search online for services or products.  In tough economic times it’s vitally important to have a strong web presence.  If your site is a few years old-take a fresh look at it or have a candid friend do it-styles change.   Remember your customers are used to seeing many websites.  Some common problems of older websites are: stiff presentation with lots of text and few images.  Text too small, or too close together.  Distracting background, that makes text hard to read.  Graphics that look dated (hard to describe) but you know it when you see it.  The look of websites has evolved.

Website Re-Design Tips & Considerations:  See my How to Plan For Your Website article for helpful step by step process.

Benefits of updating or redoing your site are:

• Increased traffic to your site, leading to increased calls.  Also time is saved answering repetitive questions.
• Get found by potential customers, especially  younger tech savvy ones, who are less likely to use the yellow pages.

Keep up with your successful competitors who have an online presence.  You basically can’t afford to not be online.  Hiring a web designer gets you online fast-with an attractive, easy to use site that  you can update yourself if you choose.  See my contact page to book a free website evaluation. I specialize in small business and holistic, healers and therapists but can create for all small business needs.  If your job is too complex I can recommend others to work with you.

The next step and it’s often an all in one process, is to get hosting for your website.  Hosting is basically a way of saying you own a domain name- ValleyFinestCarRepair.com,  now but your files needs a place, a location to live. That’s what hosting is!  Again check out Bluehost, their customer service is excellent, they are based out of Utah.  Usually super helpful and patient techs.  I prefer them to Godaddy, which is another popular host.  At this time for $6.95 a month Bluehost offers:

• Unlimited Domain Hosting
• Unlimited GB Hosting Space
• Unlimited GB File Transfer
• Unlimited E-mail Accounts
• Free Domain
• Free Site Builder w/ templates
• Secure Shell, SSL, FTP, Stats
• CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
• $75 Free Google Credit
• 99.9% Network Uptime Guarantee

Most companies are all pretty similar, don’t get overwhelmed trying to compare stats that don’t make sense to you.  For the small business, even medium sized business this is more than you need. The average price for hosting at various companies is around $3.99-$10 per month.

All the various companies (once hosting is purchased) offer free website builder programs-some are easier to use than others.  Bluehost gives access to easy set up of a WordPress site via the control panel. That simply means it’s installed as a blank-you would then have to add info, images, decide layout/colors and add many additional “plug-ins” or functionality options.  Also with Bluehost you get the tools to set up a website using either Drupal or Joomla systems.  The latter is easier to use, if you are going to do this yourself, though not as easy as setting up a site using WordPress.  WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are what are called CMS-content management systems.  Don’t let the name WordPress fool you as it was at first used only for blogging.  It is now used as a popular base for websites/blogs by folks from Martha Stewart to Jay-Z.   WordPress is “open source” meaning-lots and lots of developers are always contributing to it.  It’s not locked down and owned by one company who controls it’s development. For you or a web designer, especially one that is affordable, that’s awesome as there are lots of starting points, beautiful templates some free and some premium to build a site from.

I, like many website designers in the affordable price range, use WordPress as our architecture, to build a custom site on.  For the  client a website built on a straightforward CMS, means they can easily update their website if they choose-adding content, even adding pages is easy.   So I’ve made setting it up sound easy, so what are the benefits to using a website designer?

Saving you lots of time, as a newbie there is a learning curve, you could probably design a decent site in a few days to two weeks.  The factors depend on your level of comfort with techy stuff and your visual design awareness.  A website designer has training in setting up an appropriate site for your business-and altering a template to create a custom look for you.   Working with you to get colors and ease of navigation right, as folks will navigate away from a poorly designed site!  With no design background it’s easy to end up with a plain and unnactrive site if you do it yourself.  Also they can optimize your site with proper key words so folks can find it when searching.   Good luck and any questions shoot me at viviwill (at) yahoo.com.  Or book a free website evaluation of your current website.

Then you can go to:

Choosing a Domain Name for your website.

Lets start with domain name. An affordable website designer will work within your budget.  While we encourage clients to look at an get great ideas from other sites-be aware if it’s very flashy, it cost more money to create and maintain!

Choosing a domain name would seem easy.  But at this point it’s 2011 and many great names are gone. They were bought years ago, some by speculators who were I admit-really smart.  Names like”care,” see care.com, or “home+anyword”  or “pets+anyword”  were like owning property on 5th Avenue in New York City.  So If your business name is:

John’s Auto, or KnittingSupply.com,  it’s unlikely that’s still out there.  It’s easy to use a site such as GoDaddy or Bluehost (whom I use)  to check names. They will give you suggestions of close names when the one you want is not avialable.  Common tricks are to hyphenate,  “Blissed-OutDaySpa.com” or add location “Blissed-OutDaySpaBoston.com.”  Honestly it can be difficult to get the right name.  Also it’s great if your domain name has a popular search term for your industry in it- such as “tiresupply” or “carpenter” if those are your industries.  So in the latter case perhaps-”Carls-FineCarpentry.com” may be worth a look. Check out short article on choosing a domain name: 10 Tips for Choosing A Domain Name.

Affordable in web design is relative, one can hire one’s nephew who graduated art school, or hire someone from India online.  Affordable needs to be fully understood in terms of what you get and how well your website functions fro you to bring in new clients and serve old ones! Good luck and stayed tuned for followup on each of the above website development & design factors.

What goes into creating an affordable small business website design?

Price is an important consideration in choosing a website designer. In face the cheapest is to not hire a professional at all but to do it yourself.  This saves money for sure-but it depends how much your time is worth.  There are many template sites out there that one can use to create a good to decent web site.  Some are Homestead and Intuit.  A bit pricier and stylish but great if  you have some creative background is Squarespace or Wix (both allow for fancy “Flash*” based effects (Flash has drawbacks-ask me about it.)  And then of course there is Weebly a step down from the last two but easy to use.

So why not do it yourself?  Again time and frustration.  If you have very small business and no cash, it’s fine to use them.  But, like anything, if this is new to you-like many things you dont’ know what you dont’ know!  What a professional  web-designer will do includes:

1. help you choose domain name,
2. register it for you
3. really help you clarify who you want your business to attract
4. build a appropriate, not a cookie cutter site that-is easy to navigate through
5. And gets found on search engines, by ranking as high as possible.

I’ll explore each one in detail in upcoming articles. See part two for info on choosing a domain name, it’s unlikely you will get the exact name of your business at this point in web history.

Those are some reasons to hire someone whose business it is to create websites, they look at them all day long.  Typically a designer will also check out your competitors sites for good and bad practices before doing your site.  And as a web designer myself, I often find ways that someones old site is confusing-it may omit crucial info. For example I’ve been on sites where simply finding the address is hard!  Basic stuff.

Once site is designed beautifully to convey your small business message, then you can make changes on your own website EASILY!  Content management systems (CMS) are a way for someone with little technical knowledge to update their own website.  A content management system allows you to bring a web-page up to date in just a few minutes. It’s just like writing in your favorite word processing program.

If your website used WordPress as  content management system, you could:

* Make minor or major copy changes on your site’s pages or blog posts

*Add pages (the style and look is already coded in.) You realize you need a FAQ page-and have the time-you could do that yourself or choose to pass it on to your web tech.

* Create text styles in the same way you would use a word processor. Bold, italic, underlined, colored text and much more… there’s even a spellchecker!
* In WordPress, you can: add or switch out pictures, YouTube Videos and edit calendars with just a few clicks of your mouse.
* Interact with your visitors by allowing them to comment on your pages and articles, and you’ll always have complete control over the discussion. Or choose to shut off comments for a site that is more of a static website and not a blog.  Though it’s easy to have a interactive blog page as part of your WordPress website.

I highly recommend getting your site designed and layout done using WordPress*, self-hosted (owned by you.)  Then it’s secure, you an add functions that you need, and potentially rank highly on search engines for customers wanting your service!

*This is not the free WordPress.com that hosts literally millions of sites (that is not recommended for a small business) unless you have 0 cash and want to do it temporarily- this article is about using WordPress as a CMS on your own hosted private website.  I’ll be writing more on this soon.

Below is the form I would use with potential clients to access their needs. It is great to look over to start you thinking about building your business presence online! To have it emailed to you in word format to fill out, shoot me an e-mail, yoginikalavati(at)gmail(dot)com.

CLIENT WORKSHEET

You will find this form is useful whether you decide to have me create your website or not.  It is the start of what will become a successful, attractive website that supports your business goals.  If you are a do-it yourselfer it is still necessary to help you get clear.   Also remember if you have the time and desire to do your own site, feel free to book a consult to get clear on what programs/options to use and clarify the information provided here.

NAME:                                                                                     PHONE:

Mailing Address:

Email:

BUSINESS NAME:

BUSINESS ADDRESS:

Type of Business:

Goals of Website

• Provide potential customers w/basic info a “brochure site
• Enable customers to buy your services or products via telephone or mail-order
• Online sales
• Save time answering the same basic questions over and over
• Reduce the cost/time of marketing. (i.e. – print literature, postage.)
• Share your expertise with others via articles

Will your site be promoted by advertising, offline methods-business cards, your answering machine, and referrals?  Or is it important to rank well on search engines for new customers doing a search for your product or service.¹

Do you have a website, now? If so, what do you like best about your existing website?  What do you like least about it?

“Who you are?” Is the first thing your website should tell your visitors?

“What you do?” What are your main products or services? “

“Who do you work for?” Target Market: Describe things, like age, socio-economic, local/regional or national?

“Where do you do it?” What cities and towns do you serve or want to expand into.

Image to Convey: List 3-5 words that you want website to convey to customers.  Think about the target market answer.  Ex:  a trendy hairdresser may list:  funky, youthful, energetic, creative.  Ex:  a bank:  solid, trustworthy, serious, conservative.  Ex:  a custom carpenter:  creative, esthetically excellent, good taste, natural.

Ideas on Design Style: Can you list 3 websites you like and specifically what you like?  Color, layout, ease of use?  Keep in mind your “image” ideas. ²

Create an outline here is a general guide which can be used to determine what pages your business needs.  You probably won’t need all of them, some can be on same page depending on your business.

What you need to do:

1. Gather up all current materials, brochures, business cards.  Find photos that you want on web site.  Do you have text ready to be added to site?  If not you need “copywriting,” that is your text is not ready to use.  Copywriting is the task of writing clear, customer friendly, SEO (search engine optimized)  content for each page of your site.  That is separate service.  It requires whatever text you do have and a longer meeting to discuss what is missing, and what you want to highlight. For example a FAQ page is pretty standard and will save you lots on repetitive phone calls and your time.

Stage 1:  We discuss all of above, via phone/Skype or in person (limited local only.)
Stage 2:  I will work up a plan from our discussion & submit that to you.

Stage 3:  Deposit is paid.  Work on site begins, you are shown a sample site without your info, this gives you time to get all materials together.  You give feedback and I continue to work on site’s appearance and layout.