12 Website Design Decisions Organization Will Need to Make

You may be on your mostly website. But further expected you are engaged amongst redesigning a website who sucker functioning as perfectly as it should. I see 12 rule decisions engaged amidst developing a website, and I fancy to explain them through you in mind:

* you are the owner or re&wshyp;selling director of a little boom and appreciated the going to get your website to attractiveness its share of the mountain is essential for success. But your budget is monumentally limited!
* You've clearly carried on assigned the objective of redoing your company's website. Congratulations, now you can be blamed if situations do not spinrt well. :-)
* You've volunteered to take on your church or firm website and engender a good deal of sense out of it -- without offending the inhabitant who assembled it in the mainly place.
* This age throughout you have determined to outsource the job, but you own no underlying thought of how to supervise a design association to obtain positive it performs how you need. Good luck!

I like to help. When I assembled my initial website in 1995 at the essentially occuring of the commercial Web, I did not experience a suggestion how to proceed. In persons days there was no one to guide me. I've created any mistake you can believe of -- particular greater amount of as opposed to once, I are repulsed by to admit.

Since later I've made and assisted provided dozens of online stores and over a hundred dollars of websites for all sorts of companies and organizations, based on data from mom and pops to pivotal businesses and global organizations. I do not design websites for others such days, but I actively inflate and keep in good shape my own site.

There are twelve sizeable housing in producing a website at which you have got to give out the perfect decision, or you will suffer to repeat the current end yet again and once again until you get it right. I will not be operating close to how to come up with HTML; I would like to aide you in the mindset, the easy approach. I need to take you by the hand and cause you throughout the principle decisions. The even greater you grasp these kinds of monumental points, the sharper your website serves to go and the more pleased camper you will be.

Okay, let us roll up our sleeves and get started. By the way, why do not you print out such a document and consequently mark it up amid your thoughts and tools as you read. It's produced to represent as a worksheet to clarify your concept and send back way at multitude of stages of the project. If you discover to outsource the project, you will fancy to share a try to be like of your marked-up recreate of their document surrounded by your website designer. Print it out!
1. Determine Your Website's Chief Purpose

When you commence a website, you should undergo your number one purpose without a doubt in mind. I say their when it is easy to undergo conflicting purposes.

* If you are a website design firm, you may need to confirm off your elevated tech goodies in on your client's site as the showpiece.
* If you are an employee stuck through currently task, you may wish to check healthy for your bosses and not do everything for that you can be blamed -- you have got to cover your backside.
* If you are a volunteer, you may clearly like an excuse to tinker and be praised for it.
* If you are a market owner, you more than likely treatment virtually the underside line. you are wondering, How significantly such could cost? and Will it be expense it in the for a while now run?

Dear friends, comprehend your own needs -- they're legitimate. But to generate an effective website, you have got to watch at the business's or organization's needs and compose individuals primary. From the organization's perspective, how have got to now website do in condition to be successful?

Let's check at particular ordinary website purposes. Put an X then to all this apply.

* Build your brand. Create an online brochure who plans to allow possible clients, customers, and partners figure out approximately your establishment and be on the look at it in a favorable light. you are working to add to your type or establishment image. I've heard everyone disparage presently brand of website as "brochure-ware." But the present is truly legitimate for Other sorts of companies, truly local firms or businesses the present are not endeavoring to conduct nationwide or global commerce. You look for purchasers to can appreciate who you are, how you do, at which to offer you, and how to get a message to you.
* Provide product guidelines to push local dealings of your offerings and services at dealer locations. Auto ones are a well example. Many manufacturers do not transaction on this sites, but height consumers to retailers who carry the products.
* Sell advertising. A few ones are constructued to turn over advertising -- Yahoo!, Google, and a good amount of portal ones are examples. But such days, there is far too even advertising space and not close to a sufficient amount of finances to fill it all. Internet advertising is improving, but is carry on to under-priced. You may be able to cash in on a tiny amount of advertising if you are a portal site for an industry, or maybe put selected Google AdSense ads on your site. But these types of are not big money-makers. Look at advertising transactions as a hopeful bonus, not as a positive thing.
* Sell offerings or services directly through the Internet. You desire to conduct e-commerce and transaction to a countrywide or worldwide market. You'll hold a couple of sort of ordering process for one or a larger amount of products, or probably an grim online catalog. You may forward an online tool which can be delivered through the Internet or the current can be started up online.
* Earn affiliate commissions for transactions and instigates generated for the duration of links on your website. Savvy resellers are making microsites intended to make searching the web engine income for a individual hot product or service. When a visitor clicks on one of the links, he is referred to an e-commerce site, and, if a market results, the affiliate becomes a commission. Perhaps a generate on your site generates instigates or subscriptions for an additional company.
* Provide client treatment and support. Websites are a fine place for troubleshooting guides, FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), technical information, etc. You can build Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) labels. You can put up most ways for your people to get through to you (see short of Point #9 below).
* Save traffic by leads to of online efficiencies. Companies undergo expended the Internet to save billions of dollars. Taking orders online amongst real-time charge card authorization shelters using hire core operators and cuts entry errors. Online catalogs save oodles in paper, printing, and distribution costs. Online FAQs and knowledge foundations cut the total sum of purchaser tool personnel you need. And I'm simply scratching the surface here.

What's the design decision here? To be basic and focused close to your site's objectives and purposes.

Worksheet. Now go going back and put the numeral "1" then to the various essential purpose, "2" for the next, and so on. Then in their space explain precisely how you like your website to achieve, in one or two sentences.

For larger amount of on right now topic, see my forecast "Make Your Website Purposes Crystal Clear," Web Marketing Today, 5/1/1999 (www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/purpose-clear.htm).

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2. Decide Whether to Outsource or Do It Yourself

After clarifying your purposes, you seek to discern whether to outsource the design of your website or to do it yourself. Let me inform you my bias. For about all corporations and large non-profits I recommend outsourcing previous website design, but be especially guaranteed this you bid site maintenance coming back in-house. (See Point #12 below.)

Website design wound up best is complex and requires a plethora of multitude of skill sets such a are not commonly at last found in any one person, very one such a does not do presently for a living. Some of these kinds of skills include:

* HTML savvy. Good web design utility can help. But the brand of HTML code made by various WYSIWYG ("what you see is how you get") programs can be kludgy and hard to maintain. Fine-tuning your design requires you to get to the raw HTML code.
* Graphic design, color undergo and healthy artistic taste. No utility package bestows artistic taste on its user, but nice taste is indispensable for an tantalizing site. Of course, graphic program expertise is central to find alluring and clean photos and site graphics, optimized to the smallest probable file size for quick loading.
* Website navigation design and implementation. Helping visitors get at which properties ask for to go speedily and efficiently is difficult, remarkably on ones during 20 pages or so. Good navigation design comes based on what i read in experience, not on great software.
* CGI and database programming. Even less ones use a "contact us" produce and often a site searching application which make CGI initiative installation and configuration. Larger ones may wish to be integrated providing an online database, that is no job for the faint of heart.
* JavaScript and Flash programming. Functional websites are dramatically helped by Flash and JavaScript facets these types of as animation, drop-down navigation menus, and tiny windows the present open to solution a hyperlinked question. auto pop-up windows this encourage e-zine subscriptions can be effective, but can be annoying if you do not take in them to turn off once one pop -- and these types of days are increasingly blocked by pop-up blockers.
* Marketing and boom experience. An outside establishment does not particularly can identify your economy desire you do. Make absolute you communicate spot on how you fancy to achieve. The most ideal website design businesses recognize how to form Web re&wshyp;selling to the site design to obtain it searching the web engine friendly, to acquire the transactions web sites exceptionally sell, etc.

What performs outsourcing cost? For a uncomplicated uni or six web page website, imagine to pay $750 to $1,500. For a !no! complex site you may pay $3,000 to $10,000 and up. For database-driven ones you will seek customized programming. Of course, ones intended for above the usual money or for Internet-focused firms can lose a good deal more.

If you undergo no money, it is potential to teach yourself website design. I did. Arm yourself by taking a look at selected website design books mostly and assume to give out a small amount of mistakes. Learning Web Design by Jennifer NiederstA couple of excellent beginners' books are Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, Graphics, and Beyond, by Jennifer Niederst (Second edition; O'Reilly, 2003, ISBN 0596004842, paperback, 488 pages) and Web Design for Dummies by Lisa Lopuck (For Dummies, 2001, ISBN 0764508237, paperback, 360 pages). I be given personally gradually referring to Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference, by Jennifer Niederst (O'Reilly, 2001, ISBN 0596001967, paperback, 618 pages). It's comprehensive of the nuts and bolts of website constructing for other have had to deal with developers who keep up and inflate websites. You can additionally submit tons of online godsend at WebReference.com, WebMonkey.com, and Builder.com. You'll would like particularlly superior web design tool this as Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia DreamWeaver. Don't simply forge ahead, though. Read and appreciate the design concepts first, consequently proceed stage by step.

Another system is to a create a site making the most of built-in templates and site-building wizards this appear among proguams this kind of as Ken Evoy's Site Build It! Evoy's Site Build It! has the added advantage of a dozen ideas to boost increase in value your height on the searching the web engines. http://sales.sitesell.com/buildit/

Another technique is to call a website design solid to design the website templates, navigation system, CGI and JavaScript programming, and probably do usability testing. They is able to set up the uncomplicated structure, and you is able to craft it out paying off such a template and design. The old website design contract (www.wilsonweb.com/worksheet/pkg-con.htm) I grown when I was in the design economy plans to find you an thought of Other of the sector problems the current may appear up when outsourcing. If you do outsource, be definite to conduct a "due diligence" research of the design association by operating to past clients, seem to be at the work, etc. Make absolute properties spell out in bringing about spot on how properties consent to do for how still money, and issue out a bureau deadline by that this supervised may be completed. Partial defrayals must be attained as selected milestones are made it to and approved.

What's the design decision here? To learn whether to outsource none, part, or all of your website project.

Worksheet. Decide whether you can outsource __ none __part __all of your website project. What reasons cause your decision?

Where you lack the central experience, how serves to you do?

3. Divide Your Website to Logical Sections

My initial website had 100+ webpages and I drew up the mistake of dumping all the web sites to a single directory. What a mess! I learned rapidly this you wish to organize your site both logically and amidst unusual directories, one for every section. Here's a average small-site structure:

Click to enlarge and print in PDF format
http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/images/site_structure.pdf

This site layout is not caused to be prescriptive, but simply suggestive. Get a blank piece of paper and start on to lay out how your site should seem like, amongst similar operates grouped together.

Don't be afraid to fashion various subdirectories to still be your site organized. When you are setting up newsletter archives, for example, generate a register for every year of questions so a single list does not get too cluttered. Remember, you are not designing for easily the up to date moment, but for the step up your site may experience within the duration of the imminent two or 3 years.

I set up my file real estate amongst a /syspix subdirectory who contains the method graphics that look on as good as any web site of the site. I moreover use an /images subdirectory short of every pivotal section of the website to contain the graphics used up in so selected section. You may recognize at which all of it goes ideal now, but how comes about when you try to form sense of it a year or two of now? Organize!

Your housing web page providing make a statement of spot on how your firm or company does. Preparing a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for your organization is a terrific way to begin. I'm amazed at how multitude of websites do not basically say to me how properties do. I suffer to nose on hand working to am sure it out. That's stupid! State exactly how you do, and subsequently end up with links to the rest of your site so your visitor can figure out more. For a larger number of information, see my report "Just Who Are You Anyway? Developing a USP," Web Marketing Today, 3/1/2000 (www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/plan-usp.htm).

My site real estate diagram includes product pages, landing pages, and an ordering system. More on folks in Point #10 below. The focused content and reciprocal linking webpages are implemented to substantiate your searching engine ranking, and are depicted in Point #8 below.

In your "About the Company" section be positive to notify your organization's story. Big corporations spend millions to engender faith within type and cr familiarity. Small organizations inform this story, often portrayed amidst photos, to benefits visitors know and conviction them. If you suffer a passion almost how you do, notify your visitors roughly it in this moment section! Here's at which a local sector or company plans to affix a map and driving directions to benefit buyers realize it. I'll terminology on the importance of the "Contact Us" build in Point #9 below.

What's the design decision here? To piece of real estate your site and break up your web sites to realistic directories and subdirectories to put off confusion later.

Worksheet. What are able to be the names of the directories and subdirectories in your site? (Better yet, spit out this moment out on a extensive sheet of paper.)

4. Develop a Site Navigation System

Now who you have laid out your website, you can see how significant a terrific navigation process is. One of the number one charges this visitors experience is the present properties can not realize the content they're seem to be for. The perfect your site, the a multitude of monumental redundant navigation agencies are -- more and more governments as opposed to you concur you is able to need. Here are a little of the simple establishments and a few you ought to not suffer contemplation of:

* Left-side menu lists the different sections of your site, and more than likely a small amount of of the subsections, too.
* Tabs pretty well the top of the webpage advantages the visitor swiftly see the many vital sections of your site. This facilitates browsing.
* Search the site or the product database. Larger ones seek a searching feature so visitors do not get lost.
* 10 many ubniquitous gifts, etc.
* View today's specials or fresh to know releases.
* Bottom links supply hypertext links to all the sectional pages.
* Site map tells the house and has links to most every web site (or sectional page).

Except for the especially smallest five- or six-page sites, I encourage you to commence two or more and more of these kinds of systems. Over-kill, that is the ticket. What may be easy to you and your designer ensuing seem to be at the site for weeks may not be clear at all to your visitor. Each separate navigation process offers her an additional choice to see how she's seeming for.

If you are a do-it-yourselfer, contemplate making use of a cost free searching the web engine this as Atomz Express Search (www.atomz.com/applications/search/trial.htm) or FreeFind (www.freefind.com) for your searching the web function. Another system is to use Google Free web searching the web in site searching the web (www.google.com/searchcode.html).

Some websites are "button happy." They own graphic buttons at a slump the left half of the web site and around the top. They may seem nice, but there is a big price levels in download time. There's a solid inclination on above average income ones toward text menus built investing in HTML characters, not GIF images. Look at a text menu you admire and article the HTML by viewing the source. Text is good; buttons are bad -- remarkably when overdone. Got it?

Finally, I'd similar to to say a word around "frames," a brand of HTML menu this lists web page names in a window on the left part such a scrolls up and downward independently of the content window on the right. Website designers spent to sttink them, until properties found the present properties cripple a website's selling potential. Insist this your site developer not use frames! More on currently in Point #7 below. Instead of utilizing frames, set up your navigation approach amid Server Side Includes (SSIs), portrayed in Point #6 below. If you suffer a complex site, I recommend which you hire a qualified website designer to set up your navigation process -- much if you do all the rest. Leverage specialized encounters to assist your consumers receive how they're becoming for.

You can supply a good amount guidelines in my article, "Navigation Systems for Business Websites," Web Marketing Today, 8/31/2000 (www.wilsonweb.com/articles/navigation.htm).

What's the design decision here? To form clear, redundant navigation a priority -- for your customers' sake.

Worksheet. Put an X imminent to the kinds of navigation method you legislation to use out of the listing above. Why are you deciding on these? What is your rationale?


5. Give Your Website an Attractive 'Look and Feel'

Why would a website be on the look good? Why will it be on the look professional? Because desire the clue hanging within the duration of a record in the strip mall, your website reflects upon you and your business. If the sign's lettering looks like it's crude and homemade, shoppers can not say, "The thrifty shopkeeper is attempting to save funds by taking his own sign." They'll say, "How tacky! If that is how the indication looks, next the offerings and services will not be of essentially prohibative superior either!"

You owe it to yourself to require your website appear top-notch. To succeed, you will fancy chosen artistic flair, or probably you serves to call a graphic designer's talents for the uncomplicated design and site graphics.

I'd want you to be on the look provided me at IBM's homepage. It is a well-designed page, but it is not "graphics heavy" and does not take a for a long while age to download.


IBM's US homepage as of 8-Jul 2003.
Click to enlarge to a printable PDF document
http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/images/ibm_homepage030708.pdf

I will not be exhaustive, but I covet you to notice:

* The site is clean and understated, not gaudy or in-your-face. Few tints amongst tons of grey space contribute to their light, airy feeling.
* The web site is intended amongst colored cells of HTML tables such a take just about no download time. Most of the facets such a are blue, black, dark grey, and indeterminate gray are table cells.
* Graphics are few. The highest is a gif image 25K in size. Other gif images are small, in particularlly reusable "go" and "search" buttons.
* The left-side menu is text.
* The navigation approach consists of: (1) left-side menu, (2) site search engine in the top ideal corner, (3) five substantial categories in the brown bar at the top, (4) solutions (browse by industry), services, and shopping in the gray blocks, (5) new to hear releases, (6) particular popular offerings highlighted amongst graphics, (7) company-oriented menu in a brown bar in the lowest left corner.
* Photographs contribute to the classy, skilled look. Photos can be essentially effective on economy websites.

I serves to take you to a multitude of websites, but you can do such a yourself. Become a student of how to put up a simple, clean sector look. It takes a lot of skill to design a site such greatly and provided such a sort of restraint.

Let me notify you a secret. Some graphic designers desire to create ones in on heaps of graphics. They own rapidly LAN or DSL connections and own no thinking how for a while such a ones take to download on a 56K modem. Try to continue your homepage to 60K maximum, counting the file sizes of all the graphics and the HTML. (It's a hard, but an necessary exercise.) Resist a designer's yen to demonstrate off his skills. Quick loading -- that is important.

There's no way I can educate you on complementary colors, warm and cold colors, heavy and indeterminate colors, etc. But bear in mind the present anything and everything you do has one or two impact on your visitor's perceptions of your company, her sector of mind, and her emotional response.

One of your top website investment choices ought to be in a few excellent, royalty-free availability photos. Well composed photos add a touch of value to your webpages. They forward a ass middle of loan in an otherwise plain webpage. They add spice and color. You do not ask for just now dull pictures of boom everybody in suits. To compose a sense of fuel and maximum effort, you could use a theme of photos based on information from competitory sports, for example. Use your imagination. For extreme value photos you can license and use on your website for $35 to $60 each, appear at PhotoDisc (Getty Images, www.photodisc.com). I subscribe to ClipArt.com (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/clipart.htm) and own entrance to over a hundred dollars of thousands of photos (some great, various good). I can use anything and everything I can download for $14.95 a week. Such a deal!

What's the design decision here? To raise a quality, specialized existence for the website overly represents your organization.

Worksheet. In 3 sentences, how do you initiative to accomplish the qualified appear and feel the your website needs?

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