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| 1. Choosing a Domain Name |
One of the first steps in getting a website is thinking about your domain name, this is your website name, your web address - for example. www.yourbusiness.co.uk. We'll usually sort this out for you. Try to keep domain names fairly short, if it's too long people will find it harder to remember and also there's more chance of them mis-typing it. |
 2. Web Hosting |
Again this is something we will normally arrange for you. Hosting is basically a computer that acts as a server. All your files are stored remotely and it is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. When people enter your domain name, the server redirects their computer to your web hosting and your website appears. It's very important your hosting is safe, secure and reliable. |
| 3. Think about why and what you want from a website? |
Now that you've got your hosting and domain name sorted, the next thing to consider is what you want the website to do, what's its purpose, and why do you need it? - It might be that you need a website to be an online business card or advertisment? Your competition have websites and you need to be online to compete? You might want to promote an organisation or to display the products and services you offer to a whole new online market? There could be a million reasons to have a website, but it helps setting a goal or an objective as this will help you and the designer focus and build the website you want and need. |
| 4. How do you want it to look, what to put on there? |
This is similar to the last stage and equally as important. Thinking about the content on your site and how it looks will dictate the success of your website. Look at other sites you like, think about the things that work and the things that don't. Are they easy to navigate, show the information clearly, are they fun? - We always advise clients to give examples of the sites they like, look at their competition, see what could be improved. After doing this it makes it much easier to start selecting the colours, the branding, the whole look of the site and also the page content, navigation and site functionality. |
| 5. Getting your web content to us |
Once you've decided how you want the site to look, its function and roughly the page content - the next step is getting all this information to the web designer. Email is the best method because it allows for a quick and easy exchange of information backwards and forwards. Photos, logos, text, and documents can all be sent via email. Disk and memory sticks are also a good method of supplying information. If however you don't have access to a computer then it's just as easy to supply us with the actual photographs and documents required however this is a slightly slower process and can push the price up a little. |
| 6. Designing and building the website |
By this stage we should have a very clear idea of the website required. A quotation can now be given for the work. We then get on with the process of turning the client's idea into a fully functioning website complete with bespoke graphics, working menus, online forms (if required) and navigation. During this process we'll usually go back and forth to the client making sure everything is okay, letting them check the progress of the site on our webspace. |
| 7. Setting up email accounts |
| Towards the end of the project we'll normally set up the email accounts and email forwarding as required. |
| 8. Final checking and uploading of your website |
| Once you have approved the website, the uploading of the site to the clients hosting account begins. The nameservers for their domain are changed to point to the new working website now uploaded - www.yourbusiness.co.uk is now online! |
| 9. Submission of the site to search engines |
The site is submitted to Google, Yahoo and MSN. We recommend the client at every opportunity submits their site to any relevant websites or indexes, this helps get their site listed and ranked higher on the search engines. We also recommend they promote their site through any advertisements, business cards and printed stationery. Usually after 3-4 weeks our new websites are detected and listed on Google. |
| 10. Future costs and updating your site in the future |
| Depending on the type of website you have, the only running costs are your hosting which is paid once a year and your domain name which is paid once every two years. Most sites are updated occasionally. We always try to design our websites so that they grow with our clients. If you need more content or more functionality added in the future we can provide this. A website can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. For more detailed information on prices and our rates + click here |
We've put together the Pedley Guide to help take you through the whole web design process from the moment you think 'I need a website' right through to seeing your completed site online. To keep things simple we've kept it to 10 steps. These are the stages we go through with our clients each time we design and build a website. It's a very basic guide so it's by no means comprehensive but it does help simplify the whole process. For more detailed information please check out the 
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