The Dita Group LLC
183 Martin Point Road
Friendship, Maine 04547

Email: dita@ditagroup.com
207.542.8889

DO THE RESEARCH

Finding the right web design group is an important step. Here are some answers to your questions. . . What? How? Why? Who?

1. Domain Name Registration

• Choose a name. It should be simple and representative of your business.
• We can register your domain name (fee payable to Internic) and set up DNS for you.
• To insure ownership of domain name make sure company is listed as owner & the billing contact is internal to the business.
• Make sure your Technical Contact really has technical experience.

• Determine Goals, Functionality, Content and Audience
  
• Examine competitor sites to find strengths and weaknesses for comparison purposes.
• Surf the WWW to find appealing sites in terms of design, navigation & content.

Who are the decision-makers?

Who's responsible for what?

What is the mission statement or summary of your project?

What are the basic goals of this project?

What outcome will make this project successful?

How will you measure success?

What are your schedule requirements?

What is the budget for this project?

Is there an acceptable budget range, depending on the level and comprehensiveness of services provided? Please explain.

• The web site might be organized into a Home Page and three or four other major sections.
• The content: the substance, and information on the site should be relevant to the site and should target the area of the public that the website is concerned with.
• The usability: the site should be user-friendly, with the interface and navigation simple and reliable.
• The appearance: the graphics and text should include a single style that flows throughout, to show consistency.
• The style should be professional, appealing and relevant.
• The visibility: the site must also be easy to find via most, if not all, major search engines.

Describe any work that has been done toward designing/redesigning a new web site.

Will the web site reinforce an existing branding or marketing strategy? How?

Discuss any identity/branding assets: logos, other artwork, and fonts; social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn and You Tube.

Rank the following, in order of importance:

• A web strategy that fits with our corporate strategy
• A web strategy that fits with our marketing strategy
• Repurposing existing content
• Creating a community of dedicated visitors
• Quality execution - graphics, writing, navigation,
• Time to market
• Ease of maintenance
• Doing better than our competition on the Web
• People bookmark the site because they get so much out of it regularly

What functional requirements do you believe to be necessary?

(e.g., download areas, database-driven webpages, commerce, catalog

Who will update these functionalities?

Are there extraordinary security issues?

Are there other technical issues or limitations?

Who will maintain the site contents?

How will the site be served/hosted?

What is your long-term plan for the site?

What types of visitors do you want to attract?

What are your goals for each type of visitor?

What are the products/services involved?

What are your goals for these products/services?

The Home Page is typically the first page a user views when entering the web site, and will contain copy and graphics to immediately communicate the purpose of the site and to draw visitors to explore the site. For a signature site, use of company LOGO and company-specific graphics are essential for copyrighting. Avoid splash pages, Flash and over-the-top graphics.

The Who are We section consists of the following topics: How we Started; What We Do; and Who We Serve.

The Products Info section consists main product areas & relevant links.

The Contact Us section will reflect the global communities the client services which might link to service rep info.

Content

Where will content come from?

Will it be new, repurposed, or both?

How often will you add new content?

Who will update the content?

• A local Design Team makes it easier to meet face-to-face, telephone & catch on the fly.
• Design Team should be multi-talented to meet all future contingencies:
  (1) Strong artistic/graphic background
  (2) Technical Writing Expertise & strong editing skills
  (3) Top level software developer/sys admin to do software applications for site expansions as needed.
• A Design Team that can establish a reasonable timeline and meet deadline dates (not too over-worked with too many customers...YOU want to be their priority)
• A Web Development Company that can host your site, thus eliminating the "middleman" syndrome.

• Local administrators
• No down time
• Reasonable annual costs
• Minimal set-up fee
• Monthly maintenance as needed
• Ability to use pointers and mirror sites
• Can register, renew, & relocate domain names