Things you will need to assist in the creation of your website

Here are some things to consider when deciding how you want your website to look:

If you have a “corporate Identity” (logo, business cards, brochures), you probably want your website to compliment the overall look, color and style of these. Your logo should be the focal point at the top of your web pages. Your website should reflect the professionalism of your business.

In order for me to come up with a design that you will be happy with, take a few moments to search the Internet for websites of other businesses that may or may not be related to yours. Find a few websites that you like and send me the website addresses for them. Also, tell me what you like about each one (i.e. color scheme, overall look, graphics, menu structure, etc.). This will give me an idea of what you are looking for in a website. I will never copy someone else’s website. Your website will be unique and customized to suit your business.

Deciding how many pages will you will need

Use the generic list below to assist you with determining what pages you will need. Keep in mind that the content can be changed at any time, so you can start small (to get your website up and running quickly) and add more pages any time in the future. You may come up with page ideas not listed due to the uniqueness of your business and the purpose of your website.
Home Page	A brief introduction to who you are and what you are offering. This is also your big selling page and your opportunity to let your visitors know why they should choose you. What do you have to offer that is a cut above your competition?
About Us	Company history, Mission Statement, Goals and Objectives
Products	This can have several pages for different categories.
Services	This can have details of the services you provide and can be broken down in separate pages depending on how much content there is for each service.
Photo Gallery	A portfolio of your company, products, completed projects or anything you want to showcase.
FAQs	Frequently asked questions save you from answering the same questions over and over. It's also a way to give your visitor helpful information which gives you value in their eyes.
Employment	Job postings and the ability for people to apply online.
Links	Industry links, Vender Links, Links of interest, Link Exchange (to boost ratings).
Form mail	Visitors can request information, catalog, estimate, leave comments, sign up for something, etc.
News	Industry News, Company News, Newsletters
Events	Upcoming Trade Shows, Seminars or other events involving your organization.
Projects	Details about some of the work you have completed or are in the process of completing.
Testimonials	Customer Testimonials go a long way in showing who you are
Specials	Sales, Discounted items - Everybody is looking for Freebees.
Achievements	Awards & Special Achievements, Licenses, Organizations, Community Service
Documents	Manuals, Brochures or any document you may want your visitors to be able to download in PDF format.
Login Page	A page that only registered users can access
Contact Us	Locations, Phone, Address, Google Map, Contact List , Email

Creating the Content

Writing the content (written text) for your website will require your participation. I don’t know your business or the selling features of it, so I would have no idea what to say. I can assist you with determining what content will be useful to your website visitors and the best way to organize it. Don’t worry if you are not good with spelling and grammar, I can edit your text. Search engines look at the content of your pages to help determine your ranking. This means that you should use your company name, geographical location (if you serve a particular area), product or service name (i.e. cabinets) and any other pertinent words people may type into Google or Yahoo as many times as possible without being redundant.

Remember the basics of Grammar School English:

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

Why?

By keeping these questions in mind, it is easy to write good content. Apply the following example to each page of content to give your website visitors the information they are looking for. Remember to focus on your company’s best features.

Who? - XYX Services

What? - Repairs Widgets

When? – Two day turnaround

Where? – At your facility in Northern CA

Why? – 10 years experience – affordable prices – excellent customer service

The Home page introduction could be written as:

XYZ Services is the leader in the Widget repair industry. We have 10 years experience in repairing Widgets of all sizes and colors. A few of the models we specialize in include ABC widgets and DEF widgets. XYZ Widgets offers the most affordable widget repair service available anywhere. We take pride in our fast turnaround time and friendly customer service. We will come to your Northern California facility and repair your widget within two days or your service call is free! We also offer a mail in service for those outside our service area. Call XYZ Widgets today for a free estimate!

Apply this format to each area you are writing about to make sure you come up with all of the useful information your website visitors will be looking for.

Getting Ideas from other websites

It is okay to look at other websites for ideas that you may want to incorporate into the content of your website. Please do not take photos or text from other websites for me to copy into yours. This is copyright infringement and I will not knowingly do this. If you would like to use photos or other content from sites such as your vendors you need to get permission from them to do so. You probably would not like to see another website with your photos and exact content in it! If you need photos for your website, I have close to a million stock photos & clipart and subscriptions to several on-line stock photo services. There is no extra charge for the use of these in your website. Just let me know what you need and I probably have it!

Content Format

All text content should be supplied to me in a digital format. There will be an extra charge for re-typing information from a brochure or other printed media. Text can be emailed to me in several formats:

Typed into the body of an email
Attached to an email as a Word Document Word Perfect or a text file typed in WordPad or Notepad

Please send me your final text. Do not type the text in all caps unless this is how you want it to appear in your website. You will be billed an additional fee if I need to make a substantial amount of changes to the text you provide me with. This does not mean you can’t make changes to your content. I expect to make minor changes to the text as part of the design process.

All photos sent to me should be the size they will appear in your website or larger. I can make photos smaller, but if I try to stretch them larger, they will lose their resolution and look fuzzy. If you have non digital (printed) photos that you’d like to use in your website, I can scan them for you.

About Search Engines

I will add descriptive “meta tags” to your web pages. Meta tags are not visible on your website, but are in the html code. This is part of what the search engines look for when their “spiders” find and index websites. The meta tags include a title, description and keyword phrases. If you are targeting a specific area, it is important to include this in your keywords. (i.e. Sacramento web design, web designer northern CA, Sacramento website designer. It is also important to use your keywords in the content of your website. I can submit your site to many of the free search engines and this will help to get you listed. I can also create a Google sitemap, which is submitted directly to Google. It usually takes several months to start showing up in the search engines, so be patient! One of the most effective ways to get your website high rankings in the search engines is to get your website linked to as many other websites and related directories as possible. This can be a time consuming process, but is well worth the effort!

Domain Name and Hosting

In order to have a website, you will need a domain name and hosting service. I offer domain name registration and hosting as part of my services, but you can register your domain name anywhere.

My Hosting package includes the following:

Excellent and reliable technical support

Hosting package is very affordable If you don’t already have a Domain name, you may purchase one from my home page

If you have a Domain name (i.e. yourname.com) I can point it to my hosting server for you.

Unlimited E-mail accounts

Special features include a Message Board, form mail, web based (access email from your website) as well as Outlook email

A Control Panel you can access to set up or delete email accounts

A username and password to access the Control Panel

Keep your user ID and password information in a safe place!

Example Keyword List:

sacramento website design

elk grove california website design

web design sacramento

web design elk grove ca

web designer sacramento

sacramento website hosting

flash animation

graphic design

domain name registration

website hosting sacramento

elk grove california website hosting

sacramento webmaster

web pages sacramento

small business web design sacramento

web sites sacramento

small business websites

website design by kolleen powers

logo design sacramento

sacramento print graphics

Example Site Description:

Web design by Kolleen Powers in Sacramento CA offers affordable website design for small businesses and non profit organizations, custom websites, Flash animations, domain registration, website hosting, web graphics, logos and print graphics for business cards, letterhead & brochures.

Opening a PayPal Account:

Go to http://www.paypal.com and have your checking account number and bank routing number handy. They will step you through where to find the bank routing number on your check. PayPal will make two deposits to your checking account (usually under 20 cents each). Once the deposits show up in your account, you will verify the amounts with PayPal, and you account will be set up.

To upgrade your current Personal Account to a PayPal Business Account, please follow these steps:

1. Go to your PayPal account and log in.

2. Go to the profile tab

3. Click 'Business Information' link under the 'Account

Information' column

3. Click 'Upgrade'

4. Enter your business information and click 'Save'