Preparing
to Design Your Website
Although
it's tempting to begin designing your website by using a website
design program, it's not the best way. Before you begin actually
creating your website some planning on your part will make the actual
design process go much smoother, faster, and easier.
You
wouldn't build a house without plans. Neither should you build a
website without plans of some sort. They needn't be fancy or complex,
but should give you a guideline of what you want in your website
and where you want it.
The
Architecture of Your Website
First,
determine the categories or subjects you'll have. These will become
your web pages. Typically they'd include a home page, a page about
you and/or your business, and a contact page. If you have products
or services of course you'll want information about them. Decide
now how you want to organize this information. It'll save you huge
amounts of time later.
You
may want a links or resources page since they're the perfect place
to insert any links you acquire in a link exchange. Links to and
from other websites are one of the most important things that search
engines use when rating a website.
Like
buildings, websites can have levels. If your website is small -
20 pages or less - probably all your web pages will be on one level
or tier. These levels are created by using folders. More than 20
pages may call for some advanced organization in which you create
a folder for a specific set of web pages and save those web pages
in it. Most professionals create a folder called "images"
and save all the images for the website in that folder.
The
Layout of Your Web Pages
If
you already have a logo and layout in mind then you're almost ready
to begin creating your website with your designing program. If you're
starting from scratch then the next step is a bit of research.
Look
at some websites and as you do look with an eye to their layout,
ignoring their content. As you look at the home page, consider your
answers to these questions:
- Do
you like the website?
- If
so, what specifically do you like about it? Colors? General layout?
Busyness? Simplicity? Ease of navigation? Fast loading?
- Do
you not like the website?
- If
so, what specifically do you not like about it?
Write
down the URL of at least three websites you like and three you don't
like. Note under each exactly what you do or don't like about them.
This becomes your guideline as you create the layout for your website.
All
of your web pages should have the same basic format - the same header,
footer, background color
and images, and navigation links. Not only does this make designing
your website much easier for you (you only have to create one page
and use that as a template for all the rest!) it also makes it easier
for your website visitors. They'll enjoy your website much more
if they don't have to spend time trying to find where you hid the
links on each page.
Unless
you're experienced with creating such things as newsletters and
flyers, draw your layout on paper. Then use this drawing as the
rough draft for your web pages.
A
simple layout consists of a header and footer with the content and
navigation in between.
- Header
- this should include your logo, the name of your business and
a few words describing the service or product you offer. Example:
Write Design - Flyers and Brochures designed to help you grow
your business.
- Footer
- at the bottom of every page insert your contact information.
Don't make visitors to your website waste time searching around
to find out how to contact you. They may decide it's too much
effort and click away to another website.
- Navigation
- typically links to the other web pages are in the left sidebar
or just under the header. It's best to use one of these locations
since your website visitors are trained to look in one of those
two places. You want to make their visit to your website as enjoyable
as possible by making it easy for them to navigate around it.
If you use images or buttons for links also insert text
links at the bottom of the page for the search engines.
- Content
- This is the ONLY part of the website that should change from
page to page.
Colors,
Images, and Fonts
Colors
Use colors that are appropriate to your business or profession.
Neon green and orange are totally unsuitable for an accountant's
website. Soft pastels are not effective for a gaming website. Black
backgrounds work for artist's websites that have many images, but
make reading any considerable amounts of text difficult.
Images
The use of images should be restrained. Unless they absolutely
support your message don't use them because:
- Too
many images slows down the time the web page takes to load.
- Unless
your website exists for the sole purpose of entertainment, images
detract from your visitor's main goal - to get information.
Use
JPG format for images that have shading and GIF format for images
with flat colors.
Images
should be resized BEFORE you insert them into a web page. Reducing
the size of a huge image within the web page only makes it display
smaller. It doesn't reduce the size of the file for that image.
Large file sizes for images are the #1 culprit in slow web page
loading. Use an image editing program such as Firefox or Photoshop
Elements to reduce the size. NOTE: You can make images smaller but
you can't make them larger without jeopardizing the quality of the
image.
Fonts
Fonts reside on the viewer's computer, not on the web page. If you
specify a font that your viewer doesn't have the computer will display
all your beautifully formatted text as the default font, Times
New Roman. If
you wish to use a fancy font for a heading make it into an image
with
At
all times avoid the use of the default font, Times New Roman because
it's difficult to read on a computer monitor. Remember your goal
is to make your website visitors enjoy your website.
The
font used throughout this website is Verdana. It was designed by
Microsoft Typography specifically for use on the internet. If you
use a Mac and don't have Verdana, use Helvetica.
Avoid
the use of italics because it makes reading the important content
of your web pages very difficult. The low resolution of computer
monitors makes the letters jagged. Instead use bold
or a different color for any
text you wish to emphasize.
Refer
to the Resources page for additional
information located on other websites.
Copyright
©2008 If
you would like to use this article, please
ask. More than likely I'd be happy to share it, and I would
like you to honor my work by allowing me to give it to you.
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