Planning your Web Site Design

Pre-planing is probably the most important part of building a successful website. Even a small web site needs preliminary thought, and can save you a lot of time in the long run.

The Website Preparation Process Includes:

Purpose / Goals
Site Structure

Design / Artwork
Layout & Navigation

Content
Going Live

Creating Goals for your Website

Goals help you focus and target your website to your intended audience. What do you hope to accomplish by having a website? Who do you wish to attract as the primary (and secondary) visitors to your site?

All web sites are built in response to human needs.
People visit web sites because they want something. When visiting a site, they're looking for one of three things: information, entertainment, or services. The most successful websites are consciously planned to deliver win-win solutions that deliver both the users' goals and achieve the site's goals.

Your long term goal is having a site full of many pages of useful and valuable products & information — exactly what your visitors and the search engines want to see. If your site is a disorganized mess, more than likely it will be a failure. But website planning is only the first step, so start small to avoid frustration.

Don't get so caught up in the planning process that you never get a site up to begin with. Websites are never totally finished, there will always be fine tuning and updating to be done to get the best search engine listings. Look at as many websites as you can — especially those that are related to yours in some way. See what your competition is doing, and to get an overall perspective of web sites in general. It will also help you brainstorm for your own site.

Make Notes of your Observations Regarding:

Websites that you like - and why
Web sites that you don't like - and why not
Keep an eye out for desirable elements: overall layout, color schemes, navigation methods, content and it's presentation.

You many have numerous goals, each with varying degrees of importance. Prioritizing these goals in order of importance is part of the site purpose & goals stage, as it will ultimately effect the entire layout of your site.

Some Examples May Include:

Building brand identification & corporate awareness
To gain a favorable impression of your company
Developing leads to create a list of qualified prospects
Encourage potential customers to contact you
Selling products or services directly over the Internet
Product information for prospects, customers or distributors
Provide pricing to prospects, customers or distributors

Website Structure & Site Map

Based on the above goals and objectives, you need to decide the general structure of the website. Organizing your site carefully from the start can save you frustration and time later on. The first page is obviously your home page (known at the "index" page). Break down your site into secondary & ternary categories.

Common Secondary Pages Include:

About Us
Almost every commercial website has it, as people like to know who they're doing business with. Your information might fit on a single page, or link to several. Sub-pages might include: who we are, company history, company profile & mission statement.
Contact Us
Include every way they might wish to contact your company: telephone & fax numbers, emergency contact details, email, physical address, etc.
Location Map
Products and Services
Most companies will want to include more detailed information about their products or services beyond the introduction located on the home page.

Ternary (Subcategory) Pages:

If some of your pages contain a lot of information, you may need to subcategorize them further to keep things organized. Both people and the search engines like things clean and easy to understand.

Take a logical approach to the organization of your site: group related material, and always offer general information first, followed by optional, more detailed information later for your users who want to know more.

Page Design, Layout & Navigation

Creating the Desired Look & Feel of Your Site

Design Layout

You can save a lot of time later if you plan your design, layout and navigation carefully. Create a mock-up drawing of the general site layout on paper or the computer.

Make sure your site provides a consistent look for your visitors. The user should be able to click through the pages in your website without getting confused. If all the pages have a different look, or the navigation is placed inconsistently, the user might become frustrated and leave.

Navigation Layout

Bad navigational systems can kill a website. Many small business websites actually do more harm than good. If a visitor sees an unprofessional & difficult to navigate site, it will reflect poorly on your business.

Bad Navigation Causes

Inconsistent or "unusual" placement or styling of links
Overly complicated or "gimmicky" navigation menus
The visitor not being able to find the navigation links at all
Inconsistent page design or layout (looks unprofessional)
Graphics-only links
Misleading or unclear text and / or links

So what is "good" navigation? Intuitive navigation and consistency. Take a look at any large commercial website and you'll find very similar elements in very similar places — that's what users expect.

Site Navigation Guidelines

Place major links horizontally, near the top of the webpage. Keep these major categories to a maximum of about eight.
Use contextual links to lead your users to related information wherever appropriate. Don't be afraid to link to outside content: contextual links to outside sources add value to your own information, and well chosen links lend validity to your authority on a given subject.
Provide a search box and a site map for your visitors if your site is large.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization

No website can be successful without substantial content. Google and the other search engines use CONTENT to a great extent to determine page rank, so make sure you have plenty to say if you want visitors to your website. Gone are the days when someone could put up a home page with a logo and some contact information, fill up the meta tags with every conceivable keyword, and expect to get a large number of visitors to the website.

Keywords and search terms are those words or phrases people enter on a search engine (known as a query) in order to find information on the internet. Choosing keywords is not difficult if you follow a few guidelines. Page titles, key words and page descriptions are all involved in helping people find your website. They should be DIFFERENT for every page on your website - targeted to the actual content on that page.

Keyword Tips

Think Like a Visitor - choose words & phrases that you could imagine them entering into a search engine. How would you find a site like yours? If you can find your competitors with a search engine query, what search terms did you use to locate them?
Be Specific - if you sell used cars, for example, it will be almost useless to choose "cars" as a single keyword; you would be trying to compete with too many other sites. "Affordable second hand cars" would be a much better choice.
Keep it Short - get to the point and be honest: a user who's tricked into visiting your site will not buy from you, and the search engines will lower your page rank if you include irrelevant information in your keywords, page titles and page descriptions.

For a more complete look at SEO (Search Engine Optimization),
visit my SEO page detailing some of the SEO terms and how to increase your page rank with the various search engines such as Google.

Implementation / Getting on the Web

Begin collecting physical and / or digital copies of things that you will need for the creation of the website, including:

company logo
corporate colors

site goals & structure
site design & colors

photos for site
text for content

Steps to Launch your Website

Domain Name
what will be the address of your website? The one you want may very well be already taken! You can visit GoDaddy.com to see if it is available.
ISP - who will host the website?
You will need to choose an Internet Service Provider.
Website Registration - with several major search engines.
Website Directory - submission to the online directories (like "Yellow Pages" on the web).

Website Planning & SEO Optimization Worksheet

Download a Printable PDF Document

Graphic Connection is a freelance graphic design studio based in Lee's Summit, Missouri. We make creative ideas "come to life" in print and on the world wide web.

The first step in the design process is to discuss what your project goals are and the audience you are trying to reach. Once I have a feel for who you are and what you do, we can begin looking for ways to communicate your message visually.

As a freelance graphic designer with "on hands" experience in a commercial printing facility, I offer many advantages which can save your company both time and money when it comes to printing a graphic design project.

To see some of sample websites or graphic designs in my portfolio click here.
For a price quote on a design project click here.

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