In these first posts, I will take you through the steps involved in developing a website for a small business – we will use a hairdressers as an example, as it will involve special offers, services and products that can be sold directly using e-commerce.
First steps to take when developing a new website
It is important to consider what you are expecting from your website, whether it is simply information about your company or whether you are allowing users to purchase products directly. Who is your website aimed at? Are you focusing on the general public or is your website aimed at businesses.
You may have heard the phrase “content is king” – never has this been more important than in the Internet age. Before you speak to any web development companies it is important that you know what content you would like on your website.
I personally suggest this type of framework – where the sections will effectively form the navigation bar on your website:
Home
Special offers / News – this will provide the opportunity to keep the site updated. Which in turn will encourage users to come back (stickiness) and will cause Google to re-index your home page (search engine optimisation) because content has changed, I will write more on both these topics in future blogs.
Services
List of services provided by the salon
Products
List of products, searchable by product brand or product type.
The Salon
Information about the salon’s stylists together with the salon’s opening hours.
Contact Us
Contact information, contact form and location map.
By planning our content it is now a lot easier to see what technical requirements the website will have. Firstly we can assess what content will need updating regularly, in this example we can see that we’ll need to be able to update special offers and news on the home page – this can be achieved through a content management system (CMS). If the products are to be sold directly from the website we will need an e-Commerce solution.
The next steps would be to commission a web development company and decide on website design and functionality.
