What materials do I need to build a website?
What Materials Do I Need to Build a Business Website?
The most important material you can provide to your webmaster when building and starting a website are original text content and photos.
Sitemap: A sitemap is the structural hiearchy of your website content. Your sitemap should look something like this: Home, About Us, Products/Services, FAQ, Policies, Contact Us, etc. Expand the About Us and Products/Services section. Under About Us - you might have Mission Statement, Management Team, Affiliates, etc. Create your website sitemap so you can identify the pages and content that you will need to write in order to create a well-rounded website.
Text Content: Content is king online. Write your content yourself. Type it up in your own words. Try not to copy other website content verbatim. If you have to, rewrite it to your liking. The more unique your website content, the better. DO NOT COPY OTHER PEOPLE'S CONTENT. Create and write your own.
Original Photos: Take pictures of customers, individual workers, employees at work, your office building (inside and out), your machinery or your products (use professional photographers for product photos). Use as much original photos as possible. Avoid using stock photos, only if necessary.
Web Media: Videos, animation, PDFs, forms and downloads are to be provided in its original format. Your webmaster should be able to convert these format for web prior to installation on your website.
Contact Information: Make sure to provide telephone numbers, fax numbers, email, social media links, contact personnel and physical addresses of your businesses for website inclusion.
Product Information: Photos, graphics, instruction manuals, comparables, competition, charts, and product descriptions are your typical product page content.
Company Policies: Provide your latest privacy policy, return policy, terms and conditions and any disclaimer information.
Third Party Affiliates, Partners and Associates, its logos and website links. This is important, especially, if these third party companies are linking back to your website.