preparations: what you need for your website

Here we present some ideas for preparation.

Your website will be your public face and representative on the internet. Many people will get their impression of you from the appearance and material you present there. It is important to give these matters some consideration in order to put the best impression possible out there.

Information

Consider the information you want to present. What would a visitor, especially the visitor you're targeting to reach your website, be interested in seeing/knowing about you or your enterprise? How can you use this expectation and even raise the visitor's level of interest.

Consider the tone of the presentation; what is known as the "voice". This should be consistent with your enterprise brand or reputation, or the reputation you are trying to build.
For example, at africlub we seek to be known for our simplicity and clarity, and we try to make sure this is reflected in the tone and vocabulary of our website as well as the lay-out. Having a goal with your information gives guidance on how to put it together.

Images

A picture is worth a thousand words, so the saying goes. The better the pictures, especially dynamic images of your enterprise doing what it does, or of its products can transform a good web presence into a great web presence. Websites are for communication, and nothing communicates as powerfully as a good picture.

These days the average cell-phone camera, in good light takes as good a picture as you need for your website. So if you don't have a digital camera, take some photos with your mobile phone. If you use a camera, ensure the scanning to convert them to soft copy is done at a high resolution such as 600 dpi (dots per inch). This ensures crisp good quality images not fuzzy ones.

Logo/Brand Colours

A good quality soft copy of your logo is an important addition to preparations for getting your website. Also, if your organisation has specific colours, you can provide us with examples of the exact colours in soft copy so that we can ensure your website matches the rest of the enterprise communications material such as brochures, calendars etc.

We usually derive the colours for a website directly from your logo, which ordinarily carries all your brand colours. If your logo and brand/corporate colours differ (as do the africlub logo and colours) please provide your colours along with your logo.

Optional Features

Based on your preparation, you may find that you want specific features for your website to enhance your visitors' experiences. An example would be realizing that you want a video on your website. Please browse our Extras Boutique to see what extra features we offer for your website, and how much each costs.