Branding

5 Things To Consider When Making a Website

5 Things To Consider When Making a Website

Whether you’re doing it as a hobby project or practising your skills as a web designer/developer, there are no shortcuts on how to make a website that is sleek, professional, and attention-grabbing. Even if you use WordPress or similar software, you will still be bombarded with function and design choices that will require your decision. Here are five things to consider when making a website.

1. Choosing a Hosting Service and Domain Name
Great domain names are catchy, even if they comprise one or two words. Simply look at Google or Yahoo. Both of these one-worded domain names are recognized by anyone with a computer. Aside from a domain name that is catchy and easily sticks to your head, the name should precisely reflect your brand and its product or service.

Finding an appropriate domain name is critical, especially for dedicated business websites. Combining search engine optimization practices, name construction, and brand identity into the domain name can actually yield better chances of being found in search engine results pages. Ultimately, this leads to a higher potential in sales and profit.

2. What’s Your Back-End Plan
It is useless to learn how to make a website without a functional infrastructure supporting the back end. Think of your website as a house. It may have that sleek paint job, luxury windows and doors, and a well-maintained roof, but these are the only parts your neighbours can see. In the tech world, the home’s structure, from the beams to the flooring, serves as the back end of the design. Without it, the design cannot stand.

Fortunately, you don’t have to start from the ground up when making your back-end system. There are several trustworthy engines for eCommerce platforms you can use, such as Magento and WordPress. The latter is the ideal content management system of choice for information-rich websites.

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Choosing Your Corporate Identity According To Your Brand

Choosing Your Corporate Identity According To Your Brand

I have seen hard-nosed businessmen at each other’s throats about subtle changes in colour and hue and the exact shade required to convey the right message.

What should the company mission statement and strap-line be? What should be depicted in the logo? Should we use an established font or create one of our own? Opinion is often divided, and therein lurks a greater issue.

Branding is merely the tip of the iceberg. If individuals can’t agree on the core values of the company, then they would do well to invest time into addressing those issues before wasting effort on their corporate branding.

Having everyone working towards the same goal, singing off the same hymn sheet or being ‘on the same page’ might be a dreadful list of clichés, but if core values are at best confused and at worst missing entirely, then this is an early indication that the business may not be destined for success.

In businesses that are already well established, this is an even more serious problem as deep conflicts may exist around the overall direction of the company, which will have an effect on culture and efficiency and spill over into the realm of customer perception also.

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