Web Design For Your Horse Business- Part I
A web presence is an essential part of any successful horse business.
Why are quality websites important to a company, farm or equine business?
In this day and age, everyone is online so if you want to stay competitive you need a website. A high quality website is important because your horse business and your horses are judged by how they comes across on the web. As with showing our horses, first impressions are everything.
On average, how much should a web designer charge?
It depends on your needs. Do you need an e commerce component to take payments online? Do you want a fancy flash website to take your viewer through a marketing presentation with audio? Do you need dynamic content that you can constantly update and manage yourself or do you just need a simple brochure style website with photos and text? It also depends on whom you hire. Are you going to use your teenage nephew who works out of his basement or are you going to hire a firm or a specialized programmer? You can spend a $100 on a website or several thousand. In the end, you generally get what you pay for.
Will the web designer help someone get their domain name? Or is that something they would have to purchase first?
Sometimes clients already have their domain name or they are savvy enough to purchase their own and that is great. However, I always assist with the purchasing of a domain name if a client needs help or simply cannot be bothered. Some clients are not as computer literate and would just rather I take care of it for them. A website designer should be more then willing to assist with the domain name purchase.
What are some guarantees that a web designer should offer?
That their website will work properly and general customer satisfaction. However, once a client starts maintaining things themselves or hires someone else to maintain the site it is not up to the designer to fix problems created by a third party.
What are some hidden fees that a web designer might charge?
Hosting if you do not have your own host and on going maintenance if required. Usually those things are discussed during the conformation of requirements stage (before the design is started.)
What are the top three things that a website home page should contain?
Clean design & curb appeal- create an impression where the user will want to stay.
A clear title of who and what you are,
Easy clear navigation to the rest of your pages
In what circumstances would a business need to hire a web designer? What instances could they do it themselves?
If a website is to be more complex then the site owner can create themselves then they should hire a designer. If a business does not have the time or resources to do it themselves they should hire a designer.
If someone is savvy and confident and or has the TIME to play around with a design program or they have taken a course then for sure they can build something themselves. From my experience, most horse owners find their time is better spent in the barn. 
What is important about marketing in web rings?
Web rings create back links to your site which are very important for the search engines and they also enable your site to feed off of the traffic from users searching for related material to your site. Mostly they are a search engine optimization tool.
We will continue this article on web design for your horse business in Part II coming later this week!
