The key to building a successful website is planning. In the words of author Stephen Covey, you should “begin with the end in mind. ”
1. Define the Purpose
What is the site’s purpose? Is it to provide a professional presence? Prompt the user to call? Sell products or services online? A tool to save time?
It is imperative to clearly state the goals of the website in writing. Goals provide clear direction which ultimately leads to better results. So, begin with the end in mind. What do you want your website to accomplish and why?
2. Define your Target Market
To design an effective site it is important to know your customers. Who is your target market? What are their demographic attributes? Male or female? Age bracket?
From there, you may dig deeper. What are their very own buying habits? What journals do they read? What do they do for recreation? Do they participate in golf? Hike? Answers to those questions will help gear the internet site to your audience and satisfy their expectations. It will also allow you to choose imagery that shows the audience.
3. Opt for a Domain Name
A short name surpasses a long one
Use keyword phrases in your domain name if possible. (Keywords are words that people may well use to search for you online. )
Consider using a geographic keyword, like “PortlandPeaches. com”
Avoid trademarked names.
Steer clear of combining words that conclude and start with the same correspondence, like “talbotttools. com”, which will likely be misspelled.
4. Charge Justification
What is the average $ value of one customer over the two years? (Average dollar sales per client X number of sales each year X 2 years. )
Using this calculation you can determine how excellent customers the site needs to produce to pay for itself. (The total site cost is separated by the figure in the above computation. )
5. Size The particular Competition
What do your competitor’s sites look like? You should keep this in mind during the design cycle so that your site can stay ahead of the crowd, yet always be appropriate for your industry.
6. Decide on a Style
Take a look at websites and list three to five which you like and detail why. Likewise, find at least three you don’t like and list precisely why.
This will help you determine what for you to shoot for during the design cycle. You don’t have to re-invent the tire. At the same time, due to copyright rules, you can’t copy or re-use someone else’s work without their own written permission.
7. Write the Text Content
Writing the text content is a key part of the process. You can save a good deal of time, money, and other resources by writing the content yourself. After all, you know your business much better than anyone else. The text content ought to be broken down by category. All those categories become the buttons for the site.
Massaging the text, and receiving it into its final contact form, before designing the site enables the designer to know how to support the quantity of text to be integrated on each page.
8. Circulation Chart
Use the text content material to create a flow chart for the whole site, showing them content for every page and how the web pages relate to each other. This will become the road map or blueprint to follow throughout the design process.
9. Select Imagery
Using high-quality pictures and imagery is crucial. Pictures or images that are fuzzy or pixelated reflect badly on your organization. Use good quality lifestyle imagery that is attracting your target market. Appropriate lifestyle imagery will help the user for you to relate to your site and create a much more positive mental impression.
iStockphoto. com is a good source intended for lifestyle photography and valuable illustrations. It is important to follow terme conseillé law and not to use another woman’s imagery without their published permission. When using images via iStockphoto, you are granted some sort of royalty-free license, consisting of permission to use the image.
10. Decide who will maintain the website.
It is important to decide at the outset, who’ll maintain the site. Sites could be designed for ease of maintenance if this is a goal at the outset. Custom websites created in Adobe Dreamweaver are typically maintained by the website design company. Sites may also be designed utilizing a Content Management System (CMS) like Wp.
WordPress sites are created utilizing a template or “theme” and could be maintained through a regular web browser with minimal coaching. No additional software is needed. The downside of utilizing a CMS is that by using a theme, your site may end up searching somewhat similarly to someone else’s.
11. Choose a Designer
This could be a person! If you are relatively web savvy and you also want to tackle the design level on your own, WordPress’s content management system is an effective option. Also, you may consider getting a web designer at this point. If you do, anything you’ve done so far you will save money. And, you’ll have an apparent direction for the designer to go by, culminating in a positive final result.
12. Choose a Hosting company
Go with a reputable company like GoDaddy or BlueHost. I’ve found these phones to be priced inexpensively and they have good 24-hour technical support. GoDaddy is perfect for Dreamweaver-based sites, even though BlueHost has better help support for WordPress sites.
A set of guidelines for choosing a hosting company will incorporate price, phone technical support (vs. online chat only), and when you’re going to use WordPress, the hosting company that supports this. An indication of how well an organization supports WordPress is whether or not they have “one-click” WordPress set up.
13. Build the site
Perform the plan and build the site. Easy navigation is a key factor in fashioning a successful site. Navigation buttons must have a consistent look, be entitled intuitively, and be located in the same place on each page.
14. SEO
You can’t talk about “getting noticed” without talking about Seo (SEO), which is a subject almost all on its own. In general, search engines like Google, Google, and Bing, use a formula to evaluate your site’s adéquation to the user. They charge your site accordingly.
Google is certainly the leading search engine company. For getting noticed, the idea is to install your site so that you are performing highly in the organic search, rather than the paid advertisements at the top in addition to the sides of each page.
Begin by adding keywords to your websites. These are words that anyone may type into Yahoo or Google to find you. Choose equally geographic keywords and key terms relevant to your content.
Conclusion
By simply following the principles outlined above, it will be easier to construct a site that complies with your goals, is easy to browse, has compelling imagery, surpasses your audience’s expectations, as well as sets you apart from your competitors.
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