How to Design a Corporate Website in 10 Easy Steps
By Ali Zain
Posted Monday, July 19, 2004
Chances are you’ve these sites a lot, they’re all over the web, basically they’re a company’s main website but laid out and designed in a specific way to deliver certain message for the company. In this article, I’ll show you how you can design a corporate website for yourself or for someone you’re working for. These easy to remember steps make it so easy, that even a 10 year old can design a site. Print this article out to read it at your own pace and you can refer back to it.
Hosting: You’d need to host your site somewhere on the Internet. Free Hosting wouldn’t cut it. You don’t want your visitors to arrive at your site and fight with pop-ups and annoying banners. The best choice for hosting your corporate site would be Dayana Host. Click here or go to (http://dayanahost.vb7.net) to signup. Their plans start from only $5.99 a year. That includes enough disk space and bandwidth for more than 10K visitors to visit your site. Hosting also comes with all the bells and whistles e.g. CGI-BIN/MYSQL/Email Accounts/Stats/Sub-Domains and much more.
Domain Name: Again, you want a short, easy to remember and memorable domain for your corporate site. You don’t want your visitor to remember some ugly big looking URL e.g. (www.angelfire.com/mac/mybigurlsite/somepage.htm). Go to (http://domains.vb7.net) to register your easy to remember domain for only $9.99/Year. That's the lowest you'll find on the net which comes with lots of goodies.
Logo: Yes, Now comes the fun part. You want to represent your corporate site by a specific logo. Think of real good design that you can create yourself or just go to GotLogos.com to get your own logo for only $25. By just submitting your domain to Got Logos, they’ll create a logo specific to your site.
Toll-Free VM#: Well, we’re getting more professional here. By placing a Toll-Free 800/877# or even a VM#, you’re site will stand out from the crowd. Not only will your site visitors trust you more, but you’ll also be building credibility at the same time. Now days it’s cheap to get an 800#. Just go to OneBox.com for your own Toll-Free VM#. For example, friend of ours own a Tech. Consulting Group named GeekTechSoft, he signed up for Toll-Free VM and got 1-888-438-4335 # wit ext: 1234 which translates to 1-888-Hav-Geek. See what I mean. Build Your Site’s credibility at the same time.
Template/Design: Now comes the design part, which is one of the easiest task in designing your site. If you’d rather design you’re site yourself then go ahead or you can hop to (www.FreeTemplates.com) and download one of their free Corp. site templates.
Tables: This is the key to designing your corporate site. You want it to be a laid out like a magazine or newspaper column. Just look at any corp. site e.g. Verizon, CNN, and NBC to name a few. They’re basically made of 3 to 4 tables.
About Us/About Co: Create a simple page that would inform your visitors about your company or consulting group. Remember that all of your site’s pages must be consistent. You don’t want your page’s design to look different. So if you’re using Arial Font and Black color on main page, use the same styles on all other pages. Insert your site’s logo at the top of this page and then a brief description of what you’re company or site is all about.
Partners Section: Now we’re talking Corporate Site here. You want your site visitors to know that you do have partners and affiliates that you deal with. Think about it, don’t you see a Partners Section on other corp. sites. Just hop on to CJ.com and join their publisher program, then find the affiliate programs that match your niche and join them. Then just put a link back to these sites on your Partners Page. You’d also get paid if a visitor from your site buys or clicks on the link.
Testimonials/Feedback: This is critical to your corp. site design. Create a page that would include testimonials from your past clients or their feedback about the work provided. You want to build credibility as well as inform you’re visitors that you are a legitimate co. or group.
Clients Page: Last but not least, include a page that would state all the clients you’re working with. So for e.g. if you’re an accounting firm and do accounting work for clients, include their names and logos if they provide you one on this page. Again, Credibility is the Key here.
BONUS: Ok, I know I did say 10 Steps, but here is 1 Powerful tip. On your main Corp. Site page, include your Site’s professional email addresses e.g. Sales@YourCorpSite.com, CEO@YourCorpSite.com, CustomerService@YourCorpSite.com and Billing@YourCorpSite.com to name a few. You can create these emails by going in your control panel in your Dayana Host’s Site @ (http://dayanahost.vb7.net).
So there you have it, 10 simple, easy to remember steps in designing your Corp. Site. Again, get your hosting, domain, logo, get a template and design it in 3 or 4 tables, create the pages as mentioned above, get a Toll-Free VM and you’d have one of the best Corp. Site in no time J
Referenced Sites:
Dayana Hosting: (http://dayanahost.vb7.net)
Domain Name: (http://domains.vb7.net/)
Logos: (http://www.gotlogos.com)
Toll-Free VM#: (http://www.onebox.com)
Free Templates: (http://www.freetemplates.com)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ali Z. is the webmaster and president of VB7.net, the premier site on the net for free I.T. Training. To read excellent articles written by him, subscribe to his site's newsletter at (http://www.vb7.net/news.htm). You'll also receive best I.T. Advice, tips-n-tricks newsletter and other goodies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resell Rights: Only members of VB7.net have full Resell Rights to this incredible Report. VB7.net membership is Free and you can join at (http://www.vb7.net). By joining, you can either give away or sell this report for any amount. Please note that the retail price is $19.95.
About the Author
None
