Website Design and Website Engineering
Website design and development involves more than just planning and putting up a website. It also has to do with working with the systems that run it, maintaining it with back-end programming, and keeping it viable,
Some companies even provide their web developers with a Purpose Statement in the early stages of Web Development. In it, they state what they want the site to accomplish and what they want the users to get from it. Goals, both long-term and short-term, should be defined from the start to plan for future expansion, improvement, or modification.
There are many steps in Web Development. There are also several strategies involved in Web Development that you can use to your advantage if you want to grow a new business.
However, if you are not a new business, you might want to skip ahead.
Branding (e.g., Logo Development)
This is one of the most important aspects of Web Development yet is often taken for granted. Branding means you have to think of an appropriate domain name, establish a brand, and start creating a logo.
Putting a lot of thought in developing a brand is extremely important because it can make or break your business. Take whatever you’re selling or what your service is, and keep in mind that the name and the brand have to make a good and lasting impression on your prospective clients.
Ever heard of neuromarketing?
Neuromarketing is based on the theory that a part of our brain is affected by the product ads we see and hear, and because our brains have the capacity to recall ideas and images from commercials, the brand can actually override the actual quality of the product.
This is why companies spend millions of dollars hiring experts on branding – they know that brand recall is a powerful thing in marketing. You can read more about neuromarketing on the site: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/etc/neuro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromarketing
Take the case of “Check Into Cash,” one of my favorite examples for logo design. If you have never seen its logo, then take a sneak peek of it here:
http://www.checkintocash.com/
Logos, in general, should have powerful symbols in them. Notice that their logo has both the word “check” and a check symbol in it to facilitate people’s recall. Making the logo even stronger is the use of the dollar sign instead of a regular letter “S” in the word “cash,” establishing more clearly that the services they offer have something to do with getting money.
A logo has to be able to stand on its own and represent what your company stands for. An ingeniously crafted logo can easily be recognized by people to help them recall your company and turn to you when they are in need of the product or service you are offering.
You could find logo design templates on the Internet if you want to try your hand at creating your own logo, or you could hire expert graphic designers (such as your EXCEL-WEST graphic design team) for this purpose.
Develop your ‘elevator pitch’ (Home Page Content)
Sometimes referred to as an ‘elevator speech,’ this is a meaty but concise description of the particular business you are in. This term essentially means that you only get to state your company overview of sorts within the time it takes for you to take an elevator ride – that is, about 100-150 words.
Just as a businessperson, to receive funding, pitches a business idea to a venture capitalist while they share an elevator ride, so too should you write an effective elevator pitch in order to hold the readers’ attention and interest.
You have to be able to succinctly explain – in about a paragraph on your homepage – the service or product or whatever it is on which your business is based.