So you have decided you want a website, what next? It’s not something you enter into lightly. Your website is only going to work for you, if you work your website. That means getting your website address out there, getting link backs, and promoting it. Otherwise it’s a very expensive investment to let just sit there.

The big decision… Do you need a website?

• Do you communicate with customers, clients or suppliers via email?
• Do you email other businesses to order products and services?
• Do you use the Web to find information, such as prices, phone numbers, reviews of products?
• Do you use the Web for research, such as the latest industry trends?
• Do you use the Internet for online banking and paying our bills using BPAY?

So what are the important things to keep in mind?

1. BROWSER COMPATABILITY: While many inexperienced users still use a pre-packaged browser like Internet Explorer, many have ventured further & found better browsers like Firefox & Opera. Many websites do not view the same in each browser, often breaking in one or more of them.

2. MONITOR SIZES: Instead of web pages being viewed on resolutions from 700 pixels to 1024 pixels on a flat screen, they are now viewed on 21″ plus wide screens on resolutions of 1920x.

3. MOBILE WEB: People are now on the move with the web. PDA’s, Blackberry’s & Web Ready Mobile Phones are now used regularly. Can your website be viewed quickly & easily on them?

4. ACCESSIBILITY: A law suit was successfully brought against Sydney organizers (SOCOG) for their site www.olympics.com. A private citizen succeeded in winning $20,000 (Aus) in damages, on 6 November, 2001, after a ruling that the Olympics portal caused “unjustifiable hardship” in failing to meet accessibility standards. Since then Target and many others have suffered the wraith of the courts for having inaccessible websites. Is your designer designing accessible websites?

5. PERFORMANCE: People in remote areas often rely heavily on the web for purchases, booking holidays, etc. Often they are on slow dialup connections. Large image files, animated Flash designs & web pages thrown together in many page maker programs load very slow for dial-up users, often timing out before they reach the website, so they go on to the next businesses website.

6. CLIMATE CHANGE: Website’s will reduce the need for catalogues, bulky brochures and mountains of junk mail. They reduce the need for Transport. People will be able to work from home. Banking and bill paying can be done from home and conducting business online will minimize waste, pollution and energy consumption. Cities can become decentralized meaning that people will not need to travel as far and pollution from cars will be reduced. The need for formal office space will diminish. Already there has been a high increase in the amount of home based businesses. Online communications and ecommerce minimize the pollution to the environment caused by unnecessary travel. Our websites are built 100% GREEN POWERED! No fossil fuels are used to power our studio.

Are you ready to take the leap? Yes? So what now?

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