Top 5 Points for Planning a Website
Here are 5 important points to consider in preparing to launch a new website. Getting visitors to your site is no easy feat, so once they get there, you want to make sure that they act on your content.
1. Plan: Decide what the initial goals of your website are, what you wish to gain from having it, and how you wish to budget your site development and growth over the next two years. Doing your research and planning what your website content will consist of is key to receiving the final outcome you expect from your website.
One of the best ways to do this is to create a storyboard. Although this process can be lengthy it is of great benefit to you in the long run. It will aid you in the creation of a solid Request for Proposal (RFP). If your RFP is not solid, then you will receive a variety of quotes from vendors, which will be based on their interpretation of the RFP and their perceived risk. A well thought out RFP, on the other, hand will show exactly what your expected outcome is. If you gave it to multiple developers or web companies every one would give you a quote based on exactly the same end product. With a solid RFP, you will also receive the end-product that you expected.
2. Target Audience: Be aware of who your visitors will be and how you will appeal to them. Before finalizing any design and content for your website, take the time to get to know your audience.
Who will be visiting your site? What are these people looking for? What are their needs? Their interests? Perhaps you may even want to consider if these people are educated or uneducated or their geographic locale and if that matters to you, or what is their socio-economic status? Will this have any bearing on how you design your site? How can you appeal to this demographic? You must adapt your website content and graphics as specifically as possible to the visitors that you wish to attract to your website. You will need more than a superficial knowledge of your target audience.
3. Content: Gather the information you need to share with your target audience and have it ready for your web designer. Trust me! Waiting for client content is where the biggest development delays occur.
There needs to be a balance between content and clicks. This means that if the website is full of too much content, your audience may lose interest very quickly due to too many clicks to find the information they need and because of information overload. Having to read through heaps of content can disinterest even the most avid web searcher. So, make your point, convey your information, and be precise.
4. Pages: How will your information be managed and broken out over the site? Don't rely on your designer to interpret your content and guess. He WILL get it wrong.
Once again, this comes back to planning and research. Make sure to create a sitemap. Sure, you may not know what information will fit best on each page, or what the best design layout is but at least provide your designer with an outline of how you would like all of your information laid out, what the information groupings will be, and where information should be placed. Your designer can decide what is best graphically for your site but only you are the expert of your own business and its information. If you rely solely on your designer to group information and lay it out for you, you will not necessarily be pleased with the end result. Do your homework and take the guesswork out of the process.
5. Action: What do you want visitors to your website to do? All websites have a persuasive purpose whether it be to get someone to subscribe, to sign up for something, to inquire on a topic, or to buy something. It is imperative to focus on what your call to action is for your website. Try to do this by categorizing what the three most important things that your website allows people to do? Focusing on the task, on the action that you want people to take, is a great way of achieving clarity. It allows you to cut through the filler content and get a greater focus on the most pertinent content.
The web as a whole is continuously under construction. Just like each of our businesses, we are growing and expanding continuously and therefore it is understood that we are forever changing and developing it. Don't you think it would be a wise choice to research and plan for that development now?
Naturally there are many more points to consider, but the above should get you started in the right direction.
-Andreas
Posted: 2009-04-27 11:18:18
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