There are many factors to consider when you are deciding what sort of website would be right for you, especially if you are launching a site for the first time. It is important to get these things right in order to get the most out of your site, and I am happy to discuss any of these or other points with you. Please contact me to discuss your requirements.

• CUSTOMERS
  One of the first things to consider when setting up a new website is who you are hoping to attract to the site and what you are expecting to get out of it. If the site is for a commercial business, it is likely that the main consideration will be attracting new customers, for small businesses probably on a local level. If your site is focused on an interest or activity group the main focus will probably be on people in the local area who may wish to join. For charity organisations you may be hoping to attract visitors who may want to make a donation to your work, in which case the focus may well be nationwide or even global.
• PAGE STRUCTURE
  Having thought about who may visit the site, another important decision that has to be made is what pages you would like to include. Most of the important details about your company or organisation should be on the home page, including contact details, although you may wish to have a separate contact page with an e-mail contact form. For businesses a page focusing on products will probably be included, and a directions page to help people find you. For non-profit organisations you may wish to focus on the history and work of your organisation, maybe with a photo gallery. If you would like visitors to be able to leave comments and messages of support a guestbook page could be added.
• TEXT AND IMAGES
  The text that appears on your pages can be vitally important to positioning in search engines and therefore to increasing the number of visitors to your site. While giving a clear, concise overview, it is also important to consider what words a potential visitor might type in to a search engine query and include these words, in many cases several times, in your text, especially on the home page. It is good to achieve a balance between text and photos or other images, but a site that is heavy in images will load slower and may be a problem for users with slower connections. Unfortunately I am not able to write text for websites or take photos and so these will have to be provided for me to complete a site.
• STYLE AND LAYOUT
  Having decided on the page structure for the site and the content of the pages, it is also important to consider whether there is a particular style of layout that you would prefer. Some people will have a preference for a main menu which runs vertically down the page, others for a horizontal menu bar. Colour schemes are also important, and there may well be a particular colour that suits your company logo or just a scheme that you have a preference for.
• DOMAIN NAME
  Another consideration before the launch of a new website is your choice of domain name. The address for your site needs to be easy for visitors and those who will hear about the site through word of mouth to remember. For sites based in the UK, it may well be that an address ending in ".co.uk" or ".org.uk" will be most suitable, as well as being cheaper that the more general ".com" or ".org". Ideally, addresses should not be too long, twenty characters is a reasonable maximum length. Once your address is chosen, it should be displayed on all your publicity and paperwork.
• MAINTENANCE
  Finally, it is necessary to consider who will be responsible for updating the site once it is online. I am able to offer this service for an extra fee, or I am happy to hand the site over the you for you to update. Many sites will not necessarily require a large amount of updating once they are launched, but it is important for anyone taking on the job of maintaining a site to have a good basic knowledge of HTML in order to update the source code for the pages.