When I am asked about online stuff, I have learned to keep my mouth shut. You see, when it comes to professional web design services, its a jungle out there. And the wild animals are precisely the people asking about it.

Mostly, managers want to have a nice web site for their products, services or company. Absolutely understandable. The real problem comes in right at that point. That is, all they know, is that they want a nice site. It is as if the words “I want a nice web site” explains it all.

Can someone please tell them, “nice” is not a definitive word.

Several years ago, I embarked on a web revamp project. I was tasked to consolidate more than 22 different urls (those www.something thingies, for those of you non techies). It was a seriously huge project as these sites have grown and taken on a life of their own over a period of several years.

There was absolutely no system to the naming of the sites. Some of them would even challenge the most imaginative person to create any sort of linkage with the company or its products and services.

Obviously, this called for the help of a professional web design company. To cut a long story short, I called for a tender submission, got a few proposals and finally awarded the job for several hundred thousand dollars to a company.

Now, this company sent an ARMY of people down. There were project managers, designers, data entry staff, programmers and a manager or two. It took us, the whole team, plus all the other in-house resources, eleven months to finish the project.

Can you imagine trying to farm out such a project to Uncle Jim’s clever neighbour?

Even simply projects sometimes require professional help.

The key to a great website, is planning. Right from the start, you need to know a lot of things. To give you an idea, you need to (not exhaustive):

• define your audience
• define the scope of the project
• define the roles and responsibilities of people maintaining it
• define your marketing objectives
• define your operational objectives
• define your look and feel guidelines (in line with your corporate look or not?)
• define your budget

You know, that last one is something many people do not do. If you have a few hundred dollars to spend, don’t imagine that you can create a powerful, versatile ecommerce site with all the bells and whistles of Amazon.com.

I mean, take a look at this set of ecommerce case study and you can see that the variety of sites that are possible is really quite wide. Just because a friend successfully installed and used an OsCommerce site does not mean that it is suitable for you and your business.

I guess what I am trying to say is, careful planning is essential for a successful web implementation. Even if you have a great idea, or your products are a natural for online sales, if you do not plan your website, you will be wasting more money re-doing your site again and again, then spending it by working with a professional partner.