You want a website but have no idea where to start. The list below is intended to provide a guideline to what you need to think about. It is only a guide line as your specific needs will dictate the real list. Some of our customers come to us with very detailed plans, others with only a general idea of what they want. Either way is fine as we will work with you to get it exactly right. Please feel free to call us or drop us an email with your questions.

What is your Goal: As obvious as this may seem it is usually overlooked which leads to confusion in the design side down the road. It is important because your goal actually drives the design. Form follows function they always say. Decide early on what the website is suppose to accomplish.

Content: This means the text inside the pages and is the most important part of the website. The rest of the website builds what we call in the industry Rapport, but the contents are what sells' your product or services. In fact if your website looked horrible but had great content it could still be successful, but not the other way around.

Design: Do you know what colors you would like or the type of graphic contents. Do you have logos ready for the internet? Your website can be graphic heavy as we say, or it can be clean and sparse. It is your choice and is very much a personal decision. If you don’t know what you want please surf the internet and find some websites you like. It is no problem to get inspiration from other people’s sites as we're not going to copy them. They only act as starting point.

Number of Pages: Do you know the number and types of pages and how they relate to each other. You don’t need to know the exact details but try and think about what types of pages you should have.

Pictures: Do you have all the pictures for the website and are they in a digital format?

Forms: These pages are the ones that collect information from your visitors and then sends’ this information to you as an email.

Ecommerce: Are you going to sell something online and if so how? Do you need a shopping cart process? This can be very complex or quite simple. We have done it both ways and many in between so call us for an explanation or see our Ecommerce Section and Internet Marketing section for more information.

Domain Name: This is the name that appears in the address bar of your browser. Ours is www.riverbendcomputing.com. We can research and register for you just the right Domain Name.

Hosting: This is the server where the website will sit. It is from here that the pages of your website are sent to the browsers of your visitors. Your hosting is also where your company email will work from. See our Hosting & Domain page for more detail. We can arrange all of this for you so it is seem-less and hassle free.