Looking for a new website, or trying to fix your old one?

Here's the down & dirty on web design:

It may seem like a no-brainer for people who are already Internet-savvy, but many people still don't realize just how important a website is to their business. Also, many people still don't realize how the actual presentation of their website is just as crucial as having one in the first place. In this article, we're going to cover some of the basic principals of Internet advertisement, and also touch on some of the more unexpected things that come with constructing and maintaining a website.

Some people may question whether there's a practical reason to have a website for their business or not. While for many it's a no-brainer, (and having a website is as natural as having a sign on their front door), others wonder if a website is worth the expense and hassle. By anyone's yardstick, the answer is a resounding YES! Every business of every type, size, or style benefits from an Internet presence.

In today's world, many people use the Internet as their first step in choosing a product, selecting a service, planning a recreation, or even just window shopping, and the Internet has become the biggest decision-making tools for a great percentage of the public. Additionally, with so many search engines and business directories available online, the Internet is rapidly surpassing the phone book as the go-to source for business listings. Unlike the phone book however, a website offers far more than a tiny advertisement in the Yellow Pages ever could. Product showcases, catalogs, price listings, case examples, everything imaginable can be placed to help advertise a business. Even in its most basic form without bells and whistles, a  simple website is a benefit when people can find your business.

• Cost

With website hosting so common now, and with so many tools available to simplify web design, any business can afford to put up at least a one-page website. It's too easy not to! Regardless of what the business is, some kind of Internet presence is a necessity so the public can get contact information and at least a brief overview of the business. Even with a simple, no-frills Internet presence, a business owner can broaden the exposure of the business for an extremely low cost.

Although prices vary widely depending on a website's content and monthly traffic, a no-frills website can be hosted for as little as $5 a month.

• Design Variations

With the digital medium being as versatile as it is, a website can be designed to be anything from a straightforward, basic, one-page site to a full-blown multimedia experience complete with online catalogs, purchasing, message boards, and all sorts of nifty features. The determining factors on what to put on a website are two basic things - 1) the company's budget, and 2) the company's needs. (Obviously a fruit stand won't have nearly as many requirements as a recording studio.) Fortunately, websites can be designed to accomodate both, and the simpler the website the cheaper the price.

One of the biggest turnoffs for many business owners is the cost of designing a website. Many simply don't understand what they want, have no idea what they really need, and have no concept of what they are really asking for. Most just don't have a clue what it takes to deliver a nice-looking, functional website that suits their company's needs. As such, many web design firms scare off potential customers by unintentionally quoting prices that simply aren't appropriate for the business.

Here's a few things to remember when looking to have a website built:

• Set Your Budget

Only you know what you can spend on a website, so pick a sensible budget that fits your revenue and use it as your focal point. Your budget is the number one determining factor in what kind of website you'll get in the end.

• Shop Around

When it comes to websites, there's generally multiple ways to get to the same place. Without getting overly technical, there are many things that work in the background of a website which are invisible to the user viewing it. And there are tools available that make web design easier, faster, and cheaper, as well as platforms that work better on the "back end" of a website, (the part that visitors don't see.) With so many options available, there are so many possibilities that the average person trying to understand it can pull their hair out in confusion and frustration! But worry not - you have one focal point to work with and that's your budget. Take that budget and shop it around to website design companies, and take the time to talk to them. Much of what a design firm will say is "technical gobblygook" to the unknowledgable, but you can get a real feel for a web designer's knowledge and style just by seeing how (or if) they take the time to explain things in a way that you actually understand.

As a general rule - a designer who takes the time to explain "technical gobblygook" without getting frustrated or tongue-tied is probably the one you want to go with. Why? Because it means they're at least courteous and respectful enough of their customers to take the time and explain things to them, rather than speak over their heads.

• Think Long Term

Another big mistake many business owners make is, when faced with web design costs, they opt for the cheapest solution they can find. Often this involves getting the neighbor's kid, the wife's nephew, the daughter's schoolmate, or something along those lines to put up a website for the cheapest price possible. While that solution may be kind to the wallet initially, in the long term you have to ask yourself, "Does spending this money really help my business?" The inconvenient truth is - the majority of "budget" websites look budget, and they make the business owner appear to have no taste, no style, and no pride in the appearance of their company. To those that are knowledegable about websites, it looks like the business owner was just too cheap to spend a little money on a decent, clean website. Depending on what kind of business it is, all of this can obviously be detrimental to luring potential customers. So unless someone has an extremely good contact that can get a professional website done "on the cheap", it's really best to spend a little extra money and hire a professional web designer. But this brings us to another issue -

When choosing who designs your website, again think long term. Will that person be around later if the website needs to be changed? Will that person fix something if it breaks? Is that person qualified to put up a professional-grade website that isn't a headache for the person following him to fix? Think about this scenario for a moment -

• Don't Be Jane

Jane runs a pottery shop filled with eclectic pieces that are both imported and created in-house. Jane decides that she wants a website that shows off her new pieces, her pricing, her contact information and store location, and also an online shopping cart system where her customers can order pieces online. Jane knows a website will only help her business, but the pottery shop is a labor of love more than a business for high profit, so her budget isn't the biggest it could be. But during the course of conversation one night, Jane's son mentions that his friend Bill from school does websites for extra money, and he could probably whip her up something cheap. Jane decides to go the cheap route, and puts Bill to work.

Bill is a well-meaning guy and he fully intends on helping Jane out, while making a little money in the process. Bill goes to work on the website and, using the knowledge he picked up "tinkering" on the internet, he pieces together something that he thinks is nice. When he's finished, Jane gives it the once-over and, although the layout wasn't exactly what she was looking for, the site seems to work okay and heck, she couldn't beat the price. Jane pays Bill, but she mentions that she'd like a few things changed around. Bill says sure, he can take care of that, but only after he's finished studying for his finals which are coming up the next week.

A few weeks go by and Jane mentions to her son, "Have you talked to Bill lately? I'd still like to change some things on the website..." John tells her they've been very busy with finals, and he thinks Bill may have a girlfriend now, so they really don't talk as much as they used to. Jane sighs, thinking about what to do next.

A month later, one of Jane's customers tells her that she tried to purchase something online but kept receiving an error, is the website broken? Jane is puzzled because she honestly doesn't know. "Boy", she says to herself, "I really need to get a hold of Bill!" That night Jane goes home and talks to her son and asks again about Bill, and unfortunately her son has some bad news. It seems that Bill has taken a part time job after school, and combined with his girlfriend, he just doesn't know when he'll have time to fix Jane's website.

Six months after getting such a good deal, Jane's website is still broken, it doesn't look as good as she wanted it to in the first place, her customers continually mention the broken features, and to top it all off, Jane doesn't know how to remedy the situation cheaply. Finally, with no other alternatives, Jane puts up an advertisement on CraigsList.com looking for someone to help her. Trying to be frugal again, she hires an out-of-work web designer to fix her website. The designer, Bob, tells her that since he didn't put the website up originally and has to go digging through someone else's code trying to understand and fix it, he has to charge her a little more for the work. Somewhat desperate, Jane agrees and pays the money, and Bob fixes the site for her.

That hurdle behind her, a month later Jane makes a business deal with a nearby import house, where she'll showcase their pottery pieces along with her own, getting a commission for every piece she sells. Since her website is now doing decent traffic and sales, she wants to feature the new pieces on her website. Jane calls up Bob to see if he can make the changes, but unfortunately Bob has moved to San Diego for a new job and just doesn't have the time to do side work anymore. Dejected, Jane throws Bob's number into the garbage and decides what to do. Since she had luck last time on CraigsList, she posts another advertisement asking for website help. This time Ben responds and agrees to help her, and he asks for the website information so he can log in and make the changes. Jane is perplexed though... login information? What? Ben patiently explains that unless he has the login information, he can't access the website to make the changes. Jane thinks, and remembers that Bob asked her for the same thing and, oh no, he was the last person to have the information! But now she threw Bob's phone number away, and the only way to to get the login information back is to contact the web host. After digging through her bills and credit card statements, Jane finally finds the phone number of the website host and, after battling the automated phone system and sitting on hold, finally gets ahold of a human being. Fighting to understand the Indian accent on the phone and wading through fifty different identify confirmation questions, Jane finally manages to coax the login information out of the phone representative. Aggravated, with an hour taken out of her day, she finally calls the new web designer back with the information and he goes to work.

A week goes by and Jane notices that her website work still isn't done yet. She's about to call Ben and find out what the delay is, when one of her customers innocently asks why her website is broken. Playing it cool, Jane says she's having some work done to it, and after the customer leaves, she checks the website and notices that the online catalog isn't working at all anymore. Puzzled, she calls Ben and gets no answer. Later that afternoon, she calls again. She calls again the next day, and every day for the next week. It appears that Ben simply logged in, broke the site, and then disappeared. Talking the matter over with her son later that night, he gently informs her that Ben probably didn't know what he was doing, tried to fix the website and broke it, and then disappeared after realizing what he'd done.

Finally, at the end of her patience with all of this website nonsense, Jane checks the phone book and calls a web design company, telling them her problems. After reviewing her website, the design company regretfully informs her that the cheapest and most effective thing for her to do is to simply start over from scratch, get rid of all the broken amateur code, and give her business a fresh, functional new website. "Sure, we can fix your current website", they tell her, "but when we're done you'll still have an amateur-looking, hard to maintain website for just about the same money as you'd spend on letting us do it from scratch." Exasperated and annoyed, Jane finally decides to put out the money and let the professionals handle it.

Obviously this is a worst-case scenario, but situations like this are extremely common for the small business! Ask any web designer, they've all seen business owners throw good money after bad trying to fix or expand a poorly-designed and/or poorly-implemented website. In Jane's case, how much extra money did she spend in the long term trying to save money in the short term? How much time did she waste dealing with "cheap" web solutions? How much lost revenue did she experience for customers who couldn't order online and instead went elsewhere? When it's all tallied up, it's obvious that Jane would have done much better by simply doing it right from the start, spending a little extra money to have it done professionally. So remember - THINK LONG TERM! It pays off!

• Choosing A Designer

As mentioned earlier, shop around. You have your budget, find a few local web design companies and find out what they can do for you. A good web design firm should be able to offer you different web design packages for different budgets, and should be able to assess your needs, making a suitable recommendation. Also, as mentioned earlier, the designer who can translate the often-complicated technical aspects of web design into something a non-technical person can understand is usually a safe bet.

• Where's Your Input?

A lot of people make the very poor assumption that paying a web designer will solve all of their problems and miraculously cause the perfect website to appear. This is so not true. Web designers aren't mind readers! Generally, designers don't know what your business is about, and they sure don't automatically know what you envision in your head. So it's up to YOU to communicate to your designer exactly what you want to see. If there are particular colors you desire, particular features you want implemented, or if your website requires text and descriptions that only someone with knowledge of your business can supply, then it's it's up to you to supply it. Sit down beforehand and write out what you want to see. Describe your different products, services, selling points, advantages, or anything else pertinant to your business that you want to see  up on your website. A good web designer will be able to take the customer's information and work with it, but only you know what sells your products or promotes your business. So before you contact anyone, get busy writing out what you want. When you think you've covered all your bases, then contact a web designer.