Showcase your business on a website
A business card is not enough for people in the creative professions. How can you show off your skills on a tiny piece of cardboard?
With the advent of broadband - now reaching more than 95% of homes and businesses in the UK - websites are a perfect way to show off your expertise with sound, images, words, interactive tools and graphics.
- You can reach potential audiences with - for example - clips, tunes, fansites, and downloadable desktop accessories
- You can reach potential investors with a strong and clear portfolio of the projects you have worked on and the kind of investment you are looking for
- You can keep everyone updated with blogs, e-mail alerts and newsletters
And best of all, you can add something new and fresh to the world wide web for people who just like browsing round good sites and being entertained. They tell their friends, the friends tell their friends and suddenly your business name is on everyone's lips. A home movie of a cat playing the piano scored nearly two million hits on YouTube in six weeks, bringing in an avalanche of interest and new business to the design agency that posted the clip.
Whether you are designing your own website or commissioning someone else to do it, there is a lot to think about. The Commissioners Checklist takes you step by step through the process as does our interactive storyboard, The Agency.
Before you start, take time to look around the web and find sites you like – and don't like. This will help you think about what you want, and help you when it comes to briefing a designer.
There are some good examples on Cool Site of the Day and some not-so-good (but fun) examples on Web Pages That Suck, where the author invites you to "learn good web design by looking at bad web design".
