Approach To Website Design

Approach to Website Design

With the gigantic growth of companies' web sites in the last years, corporations have felt obligated to also establish a "Web presence" to remain competitive. In this paper we are going to discuss the way and method in how to design a Web site from scratch for a company with no web presence.

In order to meet users' needs, the web designers have to research and preferable follow a well thought project design plan. We are only going to discuss a basic approach to web design.

A good approach to resolve the issue is to follow a straight line of attack for designing Web sites founded on users' feedback and expectations.

I) Determine Website's Main Purpose

It is very important to be clear and focused about the site's objectives and purposes. Here are some common website purposes:

a) Build your brand and create an online brochure

b) Provide product information to drive local sales to dealers' locations.

c) Sell advertising.

d) Sell products or services directly on the Internet.

e) Customer service and support

II) Audience Definition

The capability to design a usable and useful web site is based upon the availability of a clear audience definition. One way to define the audience is conducting user surveys.

III) Create an Outline of the Website

a) Divide the Website into Logical Sections Organize the site both logically and with several directories, one for each section. It is a good idea to plan it on paper first. It is much more difficult to reorganize the site WebPages once the site is up and running.

IV) Develop a Site Navigation System

To keep user in the website we have to make it easy to navigate. The larger the site, the more important the need for a good navigation system, here are some of the fundamental systems:

a) Left side menu lists

b) Tabs near the top of the webpage helps users to swiftly find the most important sections of the website.

c) A navigation bar at the top

d) A search bar

e) 10 most common quotes, presents, etc.(relevant to the site purpose)

f) Today's specials.

g) Recent news releases.

h) Bottom links to all the pages.

i) Site map.

It is recommended to implement two or more of these systems to facilitate website navigation. A good principle that should be followed is that users should be able to go from any page on the website to any other page on the website with just two or three clicks of the mouse.

V) Give the Website an Appealing 'Look and Feel'

A good website should look professional made because like signs over a store in the mall, the website reflects upon the organization. To achieve this goal, we most take care of:

a) Page design; avoid creating a page more than 800 pixels wide to prevent users to scroll from left to right to see all the webpage.

b) Browsers: check the website with different browsers to see how it looks, most people use Internet Explorer and Netscape

c) Colors: Although we can use colors to make pages more attractive, we should follow Jacob Nielsen guidelines and be wary of overdoing things. To have a professional look we should use just three or four colors.

d) Text: use no more than three fonts, familiar, common fonts. A good advice is that a line of text, whether a column or across the screen, should not be larger than 70 characters.

e) Graphics: again following Jacob Nielsen advice, pictures most be relevant to the site.

VI) Construct the Website to Be Search Engine Friendly

One of the most important things about the building a web site, if not the most important, is to be search engine friendly. If the site is difficult to find, it will be a waste of money, time, and energy because it will not help the organization. The way that a website is created directly influences where in the search engine listings the website will be positioned. The website needs to be placed as high as possible in the search engine listings to drive traffic to the website

a) The key of search engine friendliness is "keywords". Each page built needs to contain the following elements

b) Title: An illustrative title with the most important keywords. With less than 80 characters

c) Meta tags -- The Meta tag should describe the webpage with no more than two sentences. It should contain keywords and less than 250 characters..

d) Headlines: again the headline must include keywords.

e) Body text: and again, the first paragraph of page must contain the most important keywords of the website.

f) Hyperlink text: use important and descriptive words for the hyperlinks on the website. Create links in text, not graphic format

g) Make sure that the keywords precisely reflect the webpage content

Do not stress the same keywords on every page. When the designers are building the webpage they need to have in mind at all time to construct the page search engine friendly.

VII) Promote the Website

a)