You know when you WANT a new website. And we know you NEED a great website. The question then becomes, “how do I get that?” Here are Valorous Circle’s five web design strategies for building the perfect site.
Hire a professional web design/development firm
Yes, we’re biased on this one, although we wouldn’t be much of an entrepreneur if we didn’t believe in our product. A web design firm should have a minimum of the following characteristics:
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Able to provide dedicated project management for your project.
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Have a sales and marketing focus. Your website needs to drive your audience to reach out to your organization.
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Have a dedicated development team. Your developer should not be the same person who sells you your website. Sales/Marketing and development are different skills.
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They should not make you talk to everyone on the team. You need to focus on your business while your professional development firm builds your website.
Have your branding elements ready
A professional web design firm will need your brand elements like high-resolution logos, typeface, color palette and other branding items. Have these ready to go at the start of your project.
Ensure your site is being developed on an industry standard CMS
An industry standard content management system such as WordPress will allow you to maintain and add to your website after it goes live. Why?
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God forbid, what if the company you’re working with goes out of business?
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What if your contact person/project manager/developer/sales rep leaves said company?
If we build your website on WordPress, you can survive these crises by merely finding another competent website designer.
Ensure you get FULL access to your site
You may not have the technical expertise to use these accesses. But with this information, your new developer can update or transfer your site with no assistance from your old developer.
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FTP
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CPanel
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Full administrator access
If you do not have access to all areas of your website, you can quickly become trapped by a rogue developer who prevents you from having full access to your site causing significant headaches.
Ensure that your website is mobile responsive
A responsively designed website works on all devices and automatically re-formats your site to fit the device requesting it. This means that:
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On a wide-screen monitor, your website is not merely a narrow strip down the middle of the screen.
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On a tablet, your site automatically re-formats to fit the smaller tablet screen, no matter the orientation.
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On a smartphone, your website automatically re-formats to look much like an app.
