Okay, that may sound obvious but it is amazing how many companies approach a web design agency without thinking through their brief and before they have identified what their primary business objectives for a website will be.



Generally speaking, there are three main reasons why most companies want a website: each one requires a different type of website and a different approach to design?

1- Want to streamline the time spent on the telephone by your employees providing support calls and

processing enquiries?

To be successful, this kind of website requires a lot of content and at least one FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page so you can provide your visitors with detailed and useful information about the products and services that your company provides.

If you can answer online the most common questions that your employees deal with over the telephone then you should be able to cut down on the amount of enquiries and support calls to the office.

Rather than just putting an email address on your website, set up an online contact form with form fields for the visitor to fill in and complete: that way you can qualify their enquiry and process it more efficiently, again making better use of your employee's time.

2- Want to raise your brand awareness, promote your company and improve it's reputation within it's industry?

You may already have an established offline business and to help extend your brand awareness online you should incorporate your corporate identity, company logos and graphics, into your website banners and colour scheme.

Do not worry if you have not got an established company logo or graphics. If you choose a professional website agency they will be able to design and create these for you.

By using the same imagery found on your traditional marketing stationery, such as letterheads, promotional brochures and leaflets, visitors to the website will recognise your company branding. This is a powerful branding technique to use to promote your company and one that should not be ignored.

3- Want to increase your company's sales and turnover?

Sell your products or services on the Internet - 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.

Setting up an ecommerce website is a commercially viable way to increase your company sales, especially when you compare the start up costs against that of a conventional bricks-and-mortar shop.

If you make sure that your website can automatically handle transactions via a secure shopping basket (or cart) system that processes online orders and send reciepts to customers via email, then it will be almost a hands-free business. All that will be manually required is the actual order packing and shipping.

Any company can have a website that ranks really well in the search engines, for its chosen keywords, but for it to be truly successful and provide a return on investment it needs to meet clearly defined targets.

Defining the purpose of your business website will help your web designers understand your requirements and they will be able to build you a website specifically aimed at your target market ? greatly increasing the likelihood of a successful online business website and a quicker return on your investment!