How can you get people to actually look at your website, and use it regularly?  If it’s a work website, you can set it up as a homepage, or put useful links on it that will encourage use, but what if you’re a small business?  A lot of purchasing is done on the web now, and if your shop doesn’t allow this, or at least give information about your products, then you may lose a lot of custom to other, better designed sites. Webnode does have the option to set up sales on  your website, and also to include a Paypal link.  I didn’t do this as you need to use genuine Paypal details.

Many people find out about products or services that they’re interested in now via social media.  The most common of these include Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google Plus, but there are hundreds or even thousands more!  I added some social media buttons that include Twitter and Facebook plus a selection of others that would allow users to mention the site on their social media feeds.  I also set up a twitter account @Rassilon_Books, as well as a Facebook Page, which I linked to on the Home Page. These accounts could be used to interact with people and other businesses and draw attention to the website. 

I put a link to a Youtube video on the front page, as well as an RSS feed of breaking news stories, both of which are another way of making the website interesting and useful to visitors.  The video could be regularly updated, or I could even make my own video to showcase products or have discussions.  The RSS feed can also be made more specific to viewers’ interests.

Ensuring that anyone, no matter what their abilities or disabilities are, can access your website is vitally important, or you could lose part of your audience.  It isn't even that hard to check as there are many websites available that can assist you, such as https://colorfilter.wickline.org which lets you check how people with different forms of colour-blindness will see your website, which I used to ensure there were no issues with my website colours.

You can add alternative text that will appear as photo descriptors if pictures are important on your site, so that people with screen readers can fully participate.

You can also check how it will look in different browsers.  I found that my website worked fine in Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer.  As most people don’t have access to a wide range of web browsers, they can use one of many websites to check how it appears.  This is one that I tried: https://browsershots.org. 

It's also simple to check how your website will appear at different screen resolutions on sites such as https://quirktools.com, which I tested this website on.  People may have different resolutions depending on the size of their screen, sight problems or simple preference.  Websites will look very different on mobile devices which vary from small smartphones to large iPads.  If your website doesn’t load properly or just looks terrible on some devices, this may drive away your audience, making the time and money you and/or your employer spent designing and creating your site a waste.

When setting up a website, you want it to look good and unique. While some free-to-use photos were available on Webnode, I looked for different completely royalty and cost-free images, and found suitable ones on the freerangestock.com website.  It is free to sign up and there is a wide range of free photos, as well as ones that are low cost.  You can also edit the photos before downloading them.  They do ask that you give credit to the creator, although in this case it isn’t compulsory, as mentioned in the terms of use here: https://freerangestock.com/licensing.php. This will vary depending on the site, and the creator. I did give credit to the photo creator Unsplash, on the bottom of the page the photo appears on, even though it wasn't required.

If I were to genuinely set up a business, I could use this option, or use chargeable photo websites such as Getty Images.  I could also just use my own photos, as I have with some of the images on the website.

I also wanted to design a small logo for my imaginary business, and found an excellent website that lets you design your own and download it as well as edit it to your requirements - https://logomakr.com/.  For a small business, it would save a lot of money having to pay a graphic designer to create a suitable logo, and there is a wide range of different styles of logos and fonts. The one I used just asked for credit as below, which I have included on the front page of my website.

“Outer Space graphic by Freepik from Flaticon is licensed under CC BY 3.0. Made with Logo Maker”

I decided to create my website for an imaginary small business, and a second-hand bookshop seemed ideal.  This is just the sort of business that could benefit from being on the internet as this will increase their reach to customers who would never otherwise have been able to find them.  Therefore, a major persona for the users would be a person who likes collecting old, out-of-print or unusual books.  Although older collectors may still prefer to search in person, or send requests by letter, there are plenty of collectors online.  Many younger collectors would appreciate the option to get someone else to do their searching for them, as well.

As at least some of the users are likely to be less web-savvy, the site should be kept reasonably simple and clean, to prevent confusion.  I put the products link second, so that users don't have to look far, or scroll down to find this information. The next link is About Us, which gives contact details and information about book searches.  I put another level there with a guestbook and photogallery, to demonstrate different levels of pages although they could just as easily go elsewhere.

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