We were just voted “Best Answer” for an answer we provided for a “Linked In” question…so we thought we’d share it with you. Who knows? It might info you need as well!

Question: how to go about get my website designed ?

Answer (From Fuelhaus):
Here’s some steps that should help you get rolling!

1) What is the purpose of your website? Is it to sell, inform, schedule appointments, provide an address and contact information? It sounds obvious, but I can’t tell you how many blank looks I get when I ask clients this question. They know they want one, but they never really thought about all that it could do for them. Remember, your website is a sales/marketing tool….and technology allows us to add some pretty cool functionality to the site, making you website a working extension of your business!

2) What content do you want on the site? Visit similar sites, or sites that you like, decide what the main navigation of your site would be. Do you want to provide articles or other types of information? If so, plan how this would fit within your navigation. It doesn’t have to be perfect or complete, but you want a good, thoughtful list before speaking with a web designer.

3) What assets do you have? Do you have a logo, graphics or photography that you want to use in the site? If you’re going to need content, will you write it, or will you want to hire the web company to develop it for you? The clearer picture the web company has as to scope of work, the more accurate your quote will be.

4) Will you want to update the site regularly, and do it yourself? If so, your web company can help you develop a Content Management System that allows you to add pages, photos, content etc as you wish. This can be an investment, though, so honestly tell the web developer how, what and how often you will need to update your site. It may be most cost-effective to have them do it for you.

5) What’s your timeframe? Is there a hard deadline for your project? A website project—depending upon it’s complexity—can take as few as 6 weeks to 15 months to develop….but a great web design company can help you set goals, phases and interim solutions if you have a tight deadline.

Remember, a tighter schedule increases the cost. Being flexible can help you negotiate a better deal.

6) What’s your budget? You may not want to tell your web company your budget right off the bat, but it’s important. Great web designers want to help you incorporate website functionality that is realistic to your budget. (For example, you may want an email marketing component built in to the site, but you don’t have the budget. Your design company could help you create an interim solution that accommodates your more limited budget. )

Having a realistic budget in mind before you get to the meeting will help you plan your site.

7) Find a great web design company. Look for one who will spend time explaining the process to you, the flexibility to listen to your ideas and the creativity to implement them. They should also have a very organized, well-developed proposal/contract, one that clearly identifies the project, the content (sitemap) and scope of work.

This is critical…because web design can change in scope quickly. It’s a very “hours based” business. You want to make sure that you and the design company have talked about how you will handle this if/when it happens.

Hope this helps

What is the True Value of Design?
If you are in the business of marketing your company, I want to talk to you a little bit about the cost of good design. In my many years of business, I run into two types of businesses: 1) those that value good design and 2) those that don’t.

Now, I don’t usually bother with the ones who don’t, because no price will ever be low enough and their marketing is pretty much doomed to fail because it is never given a chance to work to it’s full potential. These naysayers expect design to suck money out of their wallet, and, because they try to design or print the job on the cheap, they almost always reach that expectation.

But, in the interest of being generous, I thought I’d spend a little bit of time on the subject. You know, in the hopes of enlightening you on the benefits of great design and it’s influence on your bottom line…now and in the future.

Step One: Try To Do it Your Own Self
As with any self-help program, the first step is always the hardest. Come on, admit it. You’ve probably had a moment where you thought that your silly designer is expensive and you (or your high school daughter) could do the same thing on your PC in fifteen minutes. You know what? You’re wrong. Don’t believe me? Try it. I bet that after you’ve spend 5 hours “designing” your ad with really cool gradations and cool papyrus type, you’ll print it out, show it to your associates and get laughed out of the office.

Or, worst yet, your associates tell you the love it (you’re the boss afterall and they don’t want to tell you how they really feel about it). So you spend $1600 placing a full-page ad in a local magazine that you are sure is your target customer (you spent 6 hours researching your market and negotiating a media buy). You email your Microsoft Word document to the magazine and they can’t open it, let alone print it out. After you spend 4 hours trying to figure out how to create a pdf, what column inches mean, and what the heck 300 dpi is, it finally goes into production and shows up on the magazine rack.

Guess what? Even if your photos DO end up looking ok (they usually print really dark or red if not converted to CMYK and corrected for dot gain) and your typefaces did print out correctly (they usualy turn to mush if you don’t outline your type). Your ad, at best, looks like every other ad in the magazine that was done by the owner (or the owner’s daughter). Reality is, you’re competing in a saturated market and you’ve failed to differentiate your company.

Step Two: Do a Little Math
Let’s say that you did the ad yourself and you think it turned out just fine. (That Fuelhaus wünderwoman is plain bitter, right?). Let’s do a little math on the hours that you spent buying, writing, designing and producing the ad. Let’s figure that you spent roughly 18 hours from start to finish. That’s about two full days. Let’s say your hourly rate is $100 (I hope it’s more!).

That’s an investment of $1800 of your time that you’ll never get back (time is money, right?). Now add the price of running the ad in the magazine ($1600). Wow! you’ve got a pretty hefty investment in that ad! I don’t know about you, but if I’m spending over $3,400 on project, I want to make sure it’s done right…by a professional.

It just makes good business sense to minimize your risk by hiring a specialist. A good designer will design your ad for the about the same amount without the headaches. A great designer would probably cost a bit more, but would design a high-quality campaign that lasts throughout the year and builds equity in your business.

Step Three: Adjust Your Accounting
Now , I’m sure that you (being a smart businessperson) know the difference between an expense and an investment. An expense, once spent, does not hold any value…(afterall, that’s why you get to write it off at the end of the year).

Brand design, on the other hand, is an investment (and guess what? You can write that off, too!). If done right, a great brand adds value by building brand awareness, customer loyalty and increased sales in the now and in the long term. It’s a foundation to grow on.

Step Four: Make Your Designer a Part of Your Business Team
When you look at it this way, one thing becomes clear. Your design studio is a critical part of your business success. You may have a great product and stellar business team of sales reps, accountants and attorneys—but without the skilled hand of a designer—you have nothing tangible for your company. The designer (web or print) crafts your message, creates your identity and creates the look and feel that your customers relate to, again and again.

Brand is more than an expense.
It’s a tangible relationship between you and your customer.

_Kellie Schroeder, Fuelhaus Wunderwoman

Ok, this post could almost be a twitter. It’s a link to a brilliant article about the importance of aesthetics to cognition and, essentially, brand experience.

Here’s a short excerpt…followed by the link. Read it. Learn it. Call your designer and tell him/her how essential they are to your business.

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In Defense of Eye Candy
by Stephen P. Anderson

We’ve all seen arguments in the design community that dismiss the role of beauty in visual interfaces, insisting that good designers base their choices strictly on matters of branding or basic design principles. Lost in these discussions is an understanding of the powerful role aesthetics play in shaping how we come to know, feel, and respond.

Consider how designers “skin” an information architect’s wireframes. Or how the term “eye candy” suggests that visual design is inessential. Our language constrains visual design to mere styling and separates aesthetics and usability, as if they are distinct considerations. Yet, if we shift the conversation away from graphical elements and instead focus on aesthetics, or “the science of how things are known via the senses,” we learn that this distinction between how something looks and how it works is somewhat artificial. Read More Here >

I’m always searching for the next great thing in brand design…and I truly believe the next ten years will be all about enhancing user experience. Here’s a nice sample of what I’m talking about.

This website does more than send you static information, or navigate you through a site, it uses web technology and video to actually pull you (the viewer) into the experience with them.

It’s kind of ironic that it has a silent movie type of feel…because I believe that this online “study” is very groundbreaking…like those first silent movies were. Short, entertaining, and completely changing our point-of-view. Am I being over dramatic? Only time will tell.