| The World Wide Web has been as volatile
as the internet stocks that drive the market. With the constant change
the web seems to go through, web design and development practices
have evolved during these times, placing more emphasis on usability,
fast loading pages and good quality content rich web pages. This is
done to ensure that anyone browsing your website enjoys a positive
experience while visiting your website and can increase your opportunity
for better ROI.
One of the most common issues web designers encounter is the necessary
balance of graphics to straight HTML/Text/CSS. In theory, everyone
would like a website only containing pretty graphics and awesome
flash animation. Although we still use these elements on our web
page, the proper balance is often over looked, thus resulting in
poorer then expected results from the site even though on the outside
it might look perfect. As well, with the various modem speeds used
by internet surfers around the world, web pages must be as small
as possible to increase loading time and user retention.
This article will outline the steps we take in creating and implementing
an effective, efficient and creatively unique product while maintaining
the proper steps involved in designing and implementing the best
possible product for your client.
1. Outline Purpose of Web Site.
The very first thing a designer needs to establish is what is the
purpose of the web site. What market area are you interested in
targeting? What age group and demographic? Is the web site intended
to generate leads? Sales? Depending on some of these answers, you
may realize certain constraints to consider while designing the
website. This step in the process is critical to the overall success
of the site and will dictate the approach one should take when designing,
optimizing and implementing the web project at hand.
2. Marketing the Web Site.
Once you have decided on the purpose of your site and
who you will target, you can then begin to think about the marketing
strategy you would like to adopt. Your choices might include Pay
Per Click, Search Engine Submission or optimizing the website for
various search engines. With the current popularity of search engines
and the fact that most internet users go to Google or Yahoo to find
what they are looking for, doing some form of search engine optimization
will allow you to gain more exposure online and reap the benefits
of being ranked on the various search engines.
3. Keywords.
The placement and selection of your keywords can play
an integral role in the ranking of your web site. Use a tool like
Wordtracker to identify keywords you may not have thought of, the
competitiveness of those keywords and how popular they are. Once
you have performed this research, try using one keyword phrase per
page (outside the necessary pages-about, contact, etc..). This way,
you are keeping a common theme throughout your web site while providing
the user with relevant content. Identify how many keywords you would
like to target and create that same number of web pages and you
will in essence be creating a keyword rich website.
4. Creating your Site Map.
Proper navigation is important for usability, functionality
and search engine spiders. There is nothing worse then having a
broken link or unfriendly navigation on your website. Before even
designing the various web pages one should create the sitemap along
with outlining the total number of web pages in your website. Grab
a paper and pen and outline your entire website structure and navigation.
Show which pages link to each other and once again ensure you are
keeping your website theme consistent on all pages you are creating
in your sitemap. You can also use this sitemap as another way for
the search engine spiders to index your entire site.
5. Copy, Copy, Copy.
Good content is critical these days, both from a search
engine and user experience point of view. Today, people are often
searching for relevant information using a search engine like Google
or Yahoo. It is critical for you to create good, keyword rich content
that is relevant to the theme and <title> of the web page.
When writing the copy for your web pages, always keep the identified
keywords in the back of your head and try to ensure you include
those keywords at least 4-6 times on every page that contains text.
Users will come back to your website and have only good things to
say if their experience is a positive one and they found what they
were looking for.
6. Design.
It is finally time for you to design the website. Using
the information you have gathered from the above tips, design the
site, always using good HTML, CSS and creative ideas and graphics.
Based on the above research, try and maintain the necessary balance
between text and html. Also try and utalize the power of Cascading
Style Sheets to its fullest and try and keep your individual web
pages as close to 100k in size as possible so ALL search engine
spiders can view and index your web pages.
7. Quality Assurance.
Testing is key. You need to be absolutely sure your navigation
and link structure work perfectly, all graphics are embedded correctly,
proper on page optimization has been done if required and the site
works smoothly. Have either a 3rd party Q&A specialist analyze
these aspects of your website or try getting a friend to have a
look through your site for navigational purposes. It is always better
to have someone review your site for quality assurance who was not
involved in the design process so they can spot errors and discrepancies
easier. Websites that have broken links can not only annoy your
client but Google as well.
8. Implementation.
Once all the above has been completed, you are now ready
to launch your website live to the web. Always remember, you do
not want to upload your index page until you are ready for the search
engines to spider your site. There is always the chance a search
engine spider will find your site and the worst thing you can do
is post an incomplete web page with errors live to the web. Create
a temporary directory where you can test and view your pages until
they are ready to go ‘live’.
Designing a website is more then whipping together 10 pages of
graphics and text. In the past, this was possible, but today, website
need to look good and actually have a purpose and direction in which
it needs to follow. In order for a website to be effective in whatever
it is understood and expected to do, you need proper planning and
research. The ultimate goal of any web designer is to create a site
which captures the users attention and also provides relevant information
that is useful to the person viewing your site. In the end, following
these steps will only make life easier on you when debugging, updating
and maintaining these websites along with producing a top quality
product.
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