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How to plan a website step by step

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How To Plan A Website Design For Your Business

Web Design Step by Step

We love to share knowledge and experience so in this post you will learn basic procedure to plan a website design for your business. Keep in mind a website is very critical to businesses in today post covid digitalized trends. Here we will share the important process to plan a website design for your business or services. You can expect to spend a minimum of 150 hours getting a website up and functioning for your audience. Considering you have followed our advice in planning.

Just how valuable is a website to your audience?
– An Information Source
– A communication tool
– Your 24/7 sales representative
– A Sales tool

Your website is your online image. Your website is an extension of your office on an international level. No borders no limits.

10 Reasons Why A Business Should Have A Website

1. Websites are accessible 24/7
2. Website gives credibility to your operation – location, a face to the name
3. Website enables you to tell your “whole story” – what you do, your skills, your community relations, your success stories
4. Google is a powerful tool. It will send you customers looking for your services for free
5. You can network online (this can be as effective as your offline network)
6. Through websites you can reduce your support costs dramatically – provide FAQs online
7. Websites expose your business to a larger audience than traditional media can
8. Websites aren’t expensive compared to traditional advertising
9. You can sell products and services 24/7
10. It is a fact that everyday more and more people do their research on the web, then buy,
don’t miss out

12 steps to developing a successful website. We will be explain our way through each step and by the end you will have a clear understanding of what makes a winning website. By the end you will also have a written website design
brief that will outline exactly what your winning website will contain.

1. Define Goals
2. Select a team for the development
3. Business Profile
4. Research
5. Domain Names / Website Hosting
6. Website Architecture
7. Producing Content
8. Design Specifications
9. Website Type
10. Web Designer vs DIY
11. eMarketing
12. Managing & Maintaining

Select A Team ForThe Development

Could you imagine a Profesional Sports Team without a Coach?
What about a Newspaper without an Editor?
A website needs a manager if it is going to succeed. The website manager needs
to keep the development process moving and once the website is live, they must
ensure the website continues to achieve the company’s objectives and remains up to date. We will now identify the website crew that will be responsible for developing and the up keep of your website. If you are unsure who is responsible for each section, You can assign tasks once you have a clear understanding.

Roles for Individuals.  Who will you assign?

Captain
Business Profile
Research
Content
Sitemap/Design Specifications
Domain Management
Hosting
Graphic Design
Website Programming
Updates
Marketing
Budget/Administration

Digital Marketing, USA, Canada, Honduras Spain

Business Profile Content

In this stage, you will paint a brief picture of your business. This will help you and your website crew gain a clear understanding of your business. This is very important as your website represents your business.

In essence, this will be the backbone of your About Us section. In this exercise just be brief, you can revisit it later. Write the first few things that come to your mind and then move on. Write fast, edit slowly. There are plenty of other things we can write, but this is enough for now

  • Business Name
  • Address
  • Phone
  • Website(s)
  • Contact email
  • Your Customers
  • Products/Services
  • Image you want to portray
Brain Storm Your Ideas And Research The Competition

Let’s focus on your ‘Likes and Dislikes’ and what your competitors are doing.
What are things you like
about Niche websites?
What are things you dislike
about Niche websites?
Competitor Research
What are your competitors doing? What are they doing well? What are they doing badly?
Passion Research
What do you love to do in your spare time? Enter this into a search engine, bring
up a website relating to your passion and identify what you like about that website,
use aspects of this in your own website.

Web Design Ste by Step

Define your Goals

What is your website going to achieve? The first thing you should think about is what is your company’s / business/club’s strategic plan, and then develop a website that helps achieve that goal. Put a couple of wishes in too, as websites are living entities and over time you can work towards achieving them.

What are your business goals?
example: to increase sales, find skilled staff

What are your online goals?
example: to get ranked in Google, increase sales, be easy to update

Domain Names

A Domain Name is your www address for the internet. Your Domain Name is how people will remember you; it is how people will refer to you. You must be proud of your domain name as it will be your online image.

What makes a good Domain Name?

-Easy to remember
– Matches your business
– Easy to spell
– Not too long
– Easy to say on the telephone
– Product or service driven
– Descriptive
– Has a .com .net. .org.
– Has keywords that browsers will search for you on
– Beware of hyphens for the moment

What is your current Domain Name?
if you don’t have a Domain Name, write down your top three choices for a Domain Name. And choose one you feel more attracted to.

How To Register Your Domain Name?

You need to register your domain name with a Domain Name registrar. There are literally thousands of websites where you can register your Domain Name, but all of them point back to an  Accredited Registrar. More information Contact us today.

To register any  Domain Name, you’ll need;
– an email address
– contact details of domain name manager
– a credit card
-proof of address

Website Hosting

A website sits on a web server, which is available 24/7 for users navigating the online web. You Will need to purchase Hosting for your website.

Plan a Website HOsting

Site Architecture

It’s time to create your website sitemap. Here are a few examples of the typical type of categories that appear on websites. These usually form the top level navigation.

– About Us
– Products
– Photo gallery
– Contact Us
– History
– Downloads

– Services
– Forms
– Login
– Forum
– Newsletter
– Case Studies
– Links

Card Sorting Technique

Using the card sorting technique, we will identify what is going on to make up the structure (or sitemap) of your website.

  • Step 1
    Write down everything that you think should be
    on your website. Don’t think, just write. One topic per card.
  • Step 2
    After you have exhausted all your thoughts, start
    sorting the cards out into small piles. The cards
    should be somewhat related.
  • Step 3
    See if any piles can be merged with another pile.
  • Step 4
    Once you have sorted your cards into their final piles,
    use your blank cards to write down a name for each pile,
    eg. ‘About Us’, ‘Services’, ‘Products’ etc.
  • Step 5
    Once the piles have a title, use the sitemap table on the next
    page to write down the title of each pile and the cards within
    that pile. This will form the structure of your website.

Web Design Step by Step

Website Copy Writing & Conversion

You’re writing for two readers the customer and Google.
Rule number one is don’t talk about yourself too much – talk about your clients. What does the client get? What do they get from working with you?
Here are some examples of good writing techniques for websites.

– Solve the customer’s problem
– Have a call to action button
– Hit them hard from the start
– Have keywords in your opening sentence
– Have an introductory paragraph on each page, the first paragraph is crucial
– Clean layout
– Have Interesting content
– Photos speak a thousand words
– Have up-to-date content
– Have content that will help search engines index it
– Get your message across fast
– Walk them through your website – now that you know about our services, click here
– Contains keywords within the body content
– Only underline links
– What content do you have that will get people coming back 2nd, a 3rd, and 4th time?
– Have something personal
– Does it match your audience’s language?

Design Specifications

  • Use the following ideas to write down some clear guidelines for the type of website you’d like to develop for your niche and audience. Keep in mind your Website is an extension of your business.
  • feeling
    ( Friendly, professional, relaxing)
  • branding
    (corporate colors, logos, sponsors)
  • colors
    (Soft; avoid reds and yellows)
  • Imagery
    ( sporty, tropical, agriculture, engineering – refer to www.
    istockphoto.com)
  • fonts
    ( corporate, bold, fun – check out www.dafont.com)
  • key search terms
    (Bike Shop – bikes for sale, bike servicing)

Investigate the source of your competitors. What keywords are they using or have used?

1. Go to competitor’s website

2. Choose, View / Source from the top menu

3. Locate the meta name=“keywords” content=“winning website, website seminar, email marketing, marketing campaign, email marketing software.

What Website Type Are You Looking To Have ?

You know what you want your website to look like and how it should function. There are probably things you haven’t even thought of as well. However, at this stage of the development process, you need to identify how you are going to build the website. First of all, it’s good to understand that there are two types of websites; Static and Dynamic

Static vs. CMS Dynamic

Static

HTML/FLASH

Standard Online Brochure

Client may not be able to update.

CMS Dynamic

Content Management System
ASP, ASPX, PHP
Business Catalyst, Joomla, WordPress
Client updates via an Administration Login
Shopping Cart
Can collect client information into database.

Web Designer vs Do It Yourself (DIY)

Web Designer

Experience
SEO
You can focus on your business
Get the exact design you want

DIY

Professional Exciting & Rewarding
Fewer fees
Takes time to update
Challenging
Software expense

Managing & Maintaining A Web Site for your Audience

Just like a car needs servicing & fuel to keep running, a website needs servicing
& updates to keep it running efficiently as well. There are three main aspects of website maintenance.

1. The website will need to be updated, to ensure that all information is current and useful to users.

2. Its technical aspects will need to be checked, to ensure that all aspects of the website continue to function as they were designed to do, for example online forms, links etc.

3. It will need to be evaluated, to ensure that it continues to meet the objectives of the
business and needs of users. This last process will sometimes lead to the introduction of new elements, sections, functions or content.

It is important to keep the site updated with your latest products, case studies & testimonials.

Website Statistics

You should monitor your web stats to identify web traffic, how people find you, what they look at, how long they stayed on your website etc. Google Analytics and Google Web Console will help you monitor your audiences traffic to your website to better improve your stats.

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