The Complete Guide to Effective Website Planning
If you have ever involved in creating a website, you are familiar with the dynamics involved in from addition of content, a wire frame design to inclusion of functionalities requires a solid base work. Because as the site continue to evolve, this process will become more complex. Which decides the success or failure of any project. But organizing your work ahead of time, saves your money or can benefit your design in long run. This article will help you to create a plan needed to launch a website smoothly.
Planning is essential for anything in a business. For a critical projects like banking applications, there is zero allowance for error. So you need to specify everything you’re going to do in great detail before writing a single line of code. By following a process given below you can create a strategy that greatly reduce a boatload of headaches.
Purpose What is the purpose behind your website? Are you trying to gain publicity for your business? Or you want to build an online e-commerce website? It’s important to identify the business goals, as well as your target audience. How many visitors do you expect per month? Specify your marketing goals. An analytics tool like Google Analytics will allow you to monitor your website’s performance over time. Your goal must be specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant and time based. A smart goal can determine the purpose of your website.
Budget Whether you are a small firm or a big established agency you should always set a budget for your business expenses. Ask your web development firm about the initial budget, also keep in mind what your organization can afford on post launch website development, maintenance and marketing. It’s better to choose a firm based on experience, insightfulness, references, and examples of work.
Resources In order to get started you need to understand the functionality, content and features required to complete the project. Also assemble the team of people who will be working on the website. Web Designer HTML/CSS professional Web Developer Project Manager Writer and Editor Company Stakeholders Create a content strategy What kind of content or information you want to convey to your visitors? Also refers to the visual presentation of your website. Content of a webpage include Blog posts, Pictures (such as in a gallery), Video, Slideshows, Embedded social media feed etc.
Structure Create a site map to generate leads and sales. Organize all the pages in a flow chart that your website needs. Establish the linking structure between them that give an idea of how information and traffic will flow. Focus on the content not design it will come later.
Designing Finally yield a design for your well-planned dream website. Make your navigation easy to understand and easy to find. Research shows that most users expect website navigation to be vertical and centered at the top of the page. Use an easy-to-read font for blocks of text. Choose a background color and text color that contrast well (Hint: No red text on a hot pink background). Make sure your site fits the screen. Use responsive design (or an equally effective approach) to make your website one that adapts to all screen sizes. Keep your website light so that it loads quickly. Make the company logo and tag line prominent on the page. Keep styles and colors consistent across the website. Make copy clear and concise, and put important information and features (e.g., your newsletter sign-up form) above the fold.
Test Before launching a website you need to test it. Testing includes how it renders across devices, whether mobile, tablet or desktop, as well as across browsers, such as Safari, Chrome, Internet Explorer or Firefox. However, a website should also be tested for user experience.
CONCLUSION We have presented a general process of website planning. With this guide, i hope that besides a complexity of building a website. You will be able to create a quality web design with a great plan ahead of time in the budget. Do yourself a favor that will increase your chances of success: pre-plan your website approach. Taking the time to plan your website is a great investment.