Part 1: 5 Things You MUST HAVE Before Starting Your New Business Website

By large, the most common calls our web team gets are from excited entrepreneurs ready to get started on their new business website - only for them to find out that we've given them a ton of homework before we can get started. The good news is that most have at least 1 of the 5 of these checked off of their list, but many of them are just getting started.

Our business was founded on helping entrepreneurs, and we'd be remiss if we didn't start the year off with a post celebrating and helping them achieve their dreams along the way. Even if you're a well-oiled machine - we bet you know a new entrepreneur that could use this helping hand too - and feel free to pass this along to help them on their journey so that they can be just as successful as you.

Let's get started on these 5 Things and... be ready to do your homework. That way, your web designer can have most of what they need to get started and your web design project should be right on track (more about that later)!

Number 1: Your Vision

When web designers talk about The Vision of your website, we want to know how you see your website looking and feeling, and the goal of your site. When it comes to website design for your small business, we like to break the look in feel down into two pieces - The Theme Aesthetic & The Content Aesthetic.

The Theme Aesthetic refers more to the overall style of the site itself - does it look more like a business site and it's very general and boxy, and the site is broken up in a very standard way? Or is it very modern and/or trendy and it flows in a way that might be slightly unnatural, but gives a "vibe" and a new experience to the user and has something different to offer? Or maybe it's something in between?

The Content Aesthetic refers to the way you prefer to see the content itself laid out and/or even in existence on the site. Do you like large/bold fonts? Do you like a more colorful palette? Do you like using a ton of photos (either supplied by your or stock photos) on your site? Or do you prefer minimal stock photos?

Your homework: Determine The Theme Aesthetic & The Content Aesthetic so that the Web Design team knows what will make you happy. But remember this: At the end of the day, the customer will ultimately be buying from you - so 80% of the "making happy" decision, in reality, will be whether your website is high quality enough to achieve your goal (below) to your customer - not necessarily to you. But we DO want it to look high quality. And WE (the team at The Social Robin) want to see your site as high quality as possible while doing our best to showcase your vision.

P.S. From time to time, you might experience some pushback from your web design team when it comes to design decisions. We care. A lot.

The Other 4 Business Website Must Haves

What have marketers learned? Readers hate long blog posts on websites - and as you can see, I've spent a lot of time just on the Number 1 tip to help you with your vision and ensure you can help your web designer or web developer make sense of what you want to build on your brand new site.

Thus, my listicle is a 5 Part series that is focused on educating you and not simply on giving you short snippets of short things that give you absolutely no value. You'll find that I absolutely hate that type of content. It's just not my thing. My goal is to help you. Not to provide content that regurgitates the same old marketing crap. So - I'll see you next time with some more insightful information - be ready to take notes!

Part 2 will cover Your Site Structure.