What should you prepare if you want a website?

You do not need much for a first conversation about a website. What follows is what you can gather after that. It does not have to be finished or pretty, and what is missing you can work out together. Anything that is ready does save some searching.

What the site has to do

Write in one sentence what a visitor should do after their visit, for example ring you, book an appointment, ask for a quote, sign up or come into the shop. A hairdresser who mainly wants appointments needs a different site from a builder who wants quote requests, even if they look alike at first sight.

Then note down the questions your customers ask you on the phone. Where do you work? Roughly what does it cost? How long does it take? Those questions are a good first version of your site’s content, because they come from the people you are making it for.

If you doubt whether a website is enough, read App, web app or website: what do you need? first.

Your current site, if you have one

Keep the logins to hand and make a list of the pages you want to keep. If you have figures about your visitors, for example from a statistics tool such as Google Analytics, note which pages get the most visits. Write down what you like and what bothers you as well.

The addresses of your old pages are useful too. If there is a link somewhere to yourbusiness.be/rates and that page will no longer exist, a visitor ends up at an error message. A redirect makes the site send that visitor to the new page automatically, and that is what the developer needs the list for.

Your domain name, your hosting and your email

Your domain name is your address on the web, such as yourbusiness.be. Hosting is the computer your site runs on, usually at a specialised company. Try to find out these things:

• Which company your domain name is registered with, and who is listed as the owner.
• Where your current site runs, and who can log in there.
• Where your email on that domain runs. Your email and your site often depend on the same settings, so whoever moves your site needs to know how your email is set up.

If something is in the name of a former web developer, it is good to know that now. What to look out for on ownership is in Who owns your code and data? If you do not have a domain name yet, note a few names you would like, and register your choice in your own company’s name.

Your text, even in rough form

You do not have to be a copywriter. Say in your own words what you do, for whom, where you work and how you work. Bullet points, a recorded voice message or an old leaflet will do. Someone else can turn that into good text, but the content comes from you.

Also gather what already exists: your opening hours, your contact details, your services or products, and customer reviews if those customers agree. Decide whether you want prices on the site or would rather not. A design works better with real text, because a two-word heading asks for something different from a two-line heading. If you need several languages, read what a multi-language website in Belgium needs.

Your logo and your images

Find your logo in the original file, preferably a vector file (SVG, AI or EPS). You can enlarge that without it going blurry. Ask whoever designed the logo if you need to. If you have fixed colours or fonts, note those too.

Photos of your business, your team and your work are useful, in the largest version you have. Check that you are allowed to use them. A photo you found on the internet is usually not free to use, and a photographer may have made agreements about where you can show their pictures. If recognisable people are in them, ask for their permission. If you have no photos yet, just say so, and you can plan a moment for them.

Examples you like

Take a few sites you think are good, from your own sector or outside it, and write down each time what you like, such as the colours, the photos or how quickly you find what you are looking for. A site you do not like helps as well. A developer learns more from “this is too busy” than from a description like “modern and professional”, because that can mean a lot of things.

What the site has to be able to do

Make a list of everything beyond text and images: a form, online appointments, payments, a web shop, a newsletter, an area customers log in to. For a form, write down straight away what it should ask and who gets the message. Later you can use this test to check that it arrives.

Also note which software you already use, such as your calendar, your accounting or your customer list. A site can sometimes connect to it, so you do not have to enter anything twice.

The legal details

The website of a Belgian company should show, among other things, your company name, your address, your email address and your enterprise number. If you collect data through a form, you also need a privacy notice. For cookies that are not strictly necessary, you have to ask visitors for permission first. A web shop has extra rules. Ask your accountant or a lawyer what applies to your business, because those rules can change.

Who decides

Agree who gives feedback and who has the last word. A site where five people take turns commenting can change direction every week, so gather the opinions first and let one person pass them on. If there is a real date the site has to be ready for, such as an opening or a trade fair, mention that too.

Finally, think about who keeps the site up to date afterwards. If you want to be able to change text and photos yourself, that has to be part of the build from the start. If someone else will do it, things can be simpler.