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How to plan your website

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On this page you will find some useful tips and advice on how to plan your website.

Click here to download a free website planning checklist

Websites come in all shapes and sizes, and costs can range from a few hundred pounds to several thousand pounds  depending on the size and functionality required. Before taking on any project, we always provide a full written estimate that sets out the costs of your website, optional extras and the support services that we offer.

Questions that you'll need to think about

Aims: what do you want your website to achieve for you?

Target audience: who do you expect will visit your website?

Main pages:  what are the main pages that will appear on the main menu of your site (e.g. home, about me, gallery, news, contact etc).

Galleries:  how many galleries do you require and how many images in each gallery? Do you require clickable enlargements?

Selling your work: do you plan to sell artwork from your site? If so, the options are:

1) Email - i.e. invite customers to email you with the name of the painting that they are interested in (simplest, cheapest and most common  option).
2) PayPal 'buy now' buttons - suitable if you have up to 20 works for sale.
3) An online shop - if you have more than 20 works for sale, you will really need a proper shop with a shopping cart and payment system. This will have a large impact on the cost of your site (websites with bespoke shops start at £1000).

Updating the website:  how do you want to update your website? This is a big question as it affects how your site is designed. The options are complex, but broadly fall into four categories:-

1) Paid for updates - for the technically challenged/or those without much time to spare, we do the updates for you say once or twice a year.
2) A simple content management system (text only) - very easy to use, allows you to edit text only (you change the text and use paid for updates for images)
3) A simple content management system (text and images) - easy to use, allows you to edit existing text and images on your website. Requires skills in resizing images and uploading them to your server as well as basic text editing skills..
4) Advanced content management system - professional level system which allows you edit all existing content and to add new pages to your site (new menu items), add new galleries, add to the number of images in your galleries, add blogs, guest books and other advanced functionality (for the technically able only, requires good computer skills - and it's the most expensive option)

The type of content management system you choose will  impact on the cost of the site (fully editable sites are much more expensive than partially editable sites) and, unless you have a huge budget, can also have impact on the design (i.e. the design has to fit in with the way the content management system works). The type of content management system will also impact on your hosting costs.

Individual style or a fixed framework website: do you want a site that is designed exactly to your specification and includes a design phase where each screen is laid out and agreed in Photoshop prior to development (the more expensive option)? Or to keep costs down, are you happy for us to choose a framework and design for your site?

What styles of website do you like: it's important that you look around at other websites so that you can decide what you like and don't like. Please provide links to two or three websites that you particularly admire and would like your website to look like.

Images: can you provide the images for your website cropped and ready for inclusion? The more preparation you can do yourself, the lower the final cost of the site.

Need more information on photographing your artwork? Click here to find about: photographing your paintings

Other content: will you be providing all the text and links required for your website, proof read and ready for inclusion?

Approximate total text on your website: e.g., one page of A4, two to three pages of A4 etc.

Approximate number of images on my website: we'll need an approximate total

Branding: do you have any logos or any other branding graphics that you want to include on your site? If so, we'll need copies.

Your budget: it's useful for us to have some idea of your budget. The cost of a site depends on the amount of content, the functionality required (e.g. what it does and how it works) and whether or not the site is individual or fixed framework. Our websites range from simple, low cost starter sites to high end, bespoke sites. We can design to suit any budget.

Timescales: Do you have a date in mind for the launch of your site?

Useful articles

You may also find these pages helpful. Click on a link below to read it.

1. Hosting, domain names, content management systems and the web design process
2. How to update your website - different types of content management systems
3. Website design art groups
4. Taking photographs of paintings or other artwork