Interested in designing a web site? Please print
the website planning worksheet and complete it in
preparation for your new web site!Completion of
this worksheet will lay the groundwork for your new
web site. Please have the completed worksheet
handy when you call or meet with HM Web
Designs.
You can even fax it to (225) 664-8373. It
provides a written memorandum of our mutually-agreed
plan.
Please
complete the content worksheet as well.
Organization Name: __________________________
1.
Website Purpose
Give the most important purpose a "1", next most
important a "2". Leave those blank which do not
interest you at all.
__ To gain a favorable impression of the company or
organization.
__ To develop a qualified list of prospects
__ To sell products directly taking credit card
information over the Internet
__ To encourage potential customers to contact us by
phone or mail to consummate a sale.
__ To make available product information and price
lists to distributors.
__ To make available product information and price
lists to customers.
__ To strengthen brand identification.
__ Other
_______________________________________________________
2.
Website Planning and Organization
Please label pages you desire and cross out the
rest. Please list what pages you'll need on your
web site. Some examples are "About us" "Products"
"What's New", etc
Total number of pages decided upon ________________
3.
Site and Domain Names
Site Name on Masthead:
____________________________________
Domain Name - It must be registered through your web
hosting service and approved by a domain
registration service before you can use it. You may
check the availability of your domain name at WhoIs?
(http://www.whois.com)
Domain name ____________________________ ___Desired
___Already Registered
4.
Header Graphic
It is very helpful if you will include a copy of
your company's letterhead, brochures, catalog, etc.
so we can see how you present your company image.
__ Company Logo incorporated in the masthead
graphic? If so, please enclose a color copy.
__ Photo or drawing of product?
__ Typeface preference
__________________________________________
__ Preferred colors in palette (PMS colors?)
_______________________________________
__ Other ideas
_________________________________________________________
5.
Color and Accents
For the most part, we recommend a white background
for best readability and contrast, with a band of
color or a pattern running down the left margin of
the webpage. Your preference:
May we include a link at the bottom of the welcome
page which reads "Website Designed by Geaux Web
Designs"? (You are under no obligation to say yes.)
___Yes ___No
6.
Web Site Navigation System
The navigation system of all our web site packages
includes:
* Links from the front page and sectional pages to
every page in the system to enable Web search
engines to "spider" and index content on every page.
* Colored bar "Image Map" with a brief word or two
indicating each page -- or, in larger sites -- each
section of the website. This appears at the bottom
of every page. In some sites we put this both top
and bottom. You are limited to a maximum of about
eight (8) selections on this image map. We use
server side image maps to make it easy to expand the
site at a later time without having to change the
coding on each page of the site. For this reason,
and to keep costs down, we do not include separate
"buttons" on our standard sites. Included in sites
of 6 pages or more.
* Left-Side Menus with text links are especially
useful on larger sites. Included in sites of 6 pages
or more. They can allow more detail than an 8-item
bottom image map, and can enable visitors to see
from any page how to get to any other. These may be
white or light-colored over a dark left-side color
or pattern, or black or dark over a light left-side
color or pattern.
Optional Systems. Circle those you wish incorporated
in your site.
* Left-Side "Buttons" can be used, but we do not
recommend them, since they are more expensive and
time consuming to maintain when a change or addition
is made to the system. Also, it takes significantly
longer to load many buttons than an image map of the
same area (Extra charge)
* Frames System where, typically, a scrolling menu
remains on the left side to provide navigation. We
do not recommend frames in practically any
situation, since they are a design disaster. They do
not always print out, cannot be bookmarked easily,
and often make the page design look "tacky" with
their ugly gray scroll bars. We see them as the
amateur's way to look cool. In a very few cases,
they are useful: (1) to display large databases of
information, (2) purposely hide URLs of content
pages, (3) send visitors to other sites while making
it easy for them to come back. (Extra charge)
* Search Engine is useful on larger sites of 20+
pages to help visitors quickly find what they're
looking for. (Extra charge)
7.
Basic Page Elements
These are the important items which appear on nearly
every webpage on your site (except the "home" page).
* Page titles which show at top of Web browser only
* Top-of-page graphic based on the design of the
masthead graphic
* Page Title in larger type. Heading Font Style:
________________ (recommend Arial Bold)
* Text. Body Font Style: ___________________
(recommend Times New Roman)
* Image Map by Image Map bar
* Standard company ID near bottom of page
* E-mail response link to the following e-mail
address: _________________________
* Copyright and trademark information in small print
at the bottom of every page. What registered
trademarks, trademarks, and service marks does your
company want to indicate here?
Do you have any trademarks or service marks? If so,
please list them here and indicate which are
registered trademarks.
8.
Photos, Graphics, Animations, Sound, and
Video
Our contract includes a statement that you own the
copyright to, or have permission from the copyright
owner to use any photos or graphics you send us.
* Clipart tends to look a bit tacky on websites. We
recommend photos.
* Photos you supply either by sending the photos
themselves for us to scan and return, or by sending
the digitized images on a diskette.
* Stock photos obtained from Photodisc (http://www.photodisc.com),
Corel (http://commerce.corel.com), or PictureQuest
(http://www.picturequest.com/). (You write down the
photo number and inform us of your choices, and
which page each photo goes on. We can help you
select the photos, but we would need to bill you for
our time at our hourly rate.)
For an extra charge, we can equip your webpages
with:
* Sound, either MIDI musical background or streaming
Real Audio for music or voice.
* Animated GIF images. High quality photo images are
available from PhotoDisc (http://www.photodisc.com)
and other sources. We can also make animations for
an extra charge.
* Shockwave Animations
* Video clips
9.
Response Forms
What is the purpose of your response form?
__ Guestbook for visitors to record comments
__ Request for information
__ Survey of customer preferences
Note: We do not set up sites that use the response
form as an order form, since these require secure
servers, and secure order pick-up. For one or two
products we recommend using paypal.com. We charge
extra to set up the ordering system.
10.
Web Hosting Service
Do you already have a hosting account? If so, please
answer the following questions about your host. If
you do not have hosting yet, please read my
recommendation for
web
hosting.
Web Hosting Service
_____________________________________
User name: _____________________________
Password: _______________________________
E-mail for support or help
______________________________
11.
Registering and Advertising Your Website
Consider:
* Advertising your Website to Web search engines
that index the Web
* Giving customers a good reason to come by offering
them something
* Finding industry-wide linking pages and
negotiating reciprocal links to and from their
webpages.
* Purchasing Web advertising
* Becoming active in several of the thousands of
Internet news groups and mailing lists
* Developing a "signature" mini-ad attached to all
your e-mail messages
* Making your website part of one or more of the
many "malls."
* Including your e-mail and Web addresses on all
your company's print literature, stationery, and
display advertising
* E-mail newsletters
We submit your information to Web search engines to
"register" your website after final payment is
received. Before doing this we work with you to get
50 to 100 keywords and a carefully constructed
25-word sentence contain the most important
keywords.
12.
Maintenance
Target Date____________________
Package prices include minor updating over the first
year of the contract. This covers minor price
changes, product changes, etc. It does not include
major changes, such as changing newsletter content
(which essentially involves constructing a new
webpage), which is billed at our hourly rate.
Target Date for final payment to be made and your
Web Site to be advertised: _____________
On behalf of my organization I approve the above
plan which I have developed with Geaux Web Designs
to
construct a website, and I authorize Geaux Web Designs
to use this Website Planning Worksheet as the basis
of the project.
Signature _____________________________________ Date
_________________
