A Successful Website Starts with a Design Plan
By Veronique Topping

The first step to creating a successful website is to map out a design plan. In this design plan, you should include the objectives for your website, the profile of your target audience, the content outline, and the website style including graphics and color.

Website Objectives

What is the purpose of your website? It is important to know the purpose of your website because your website purpose will influence the design. If the purpose of your website will be to provide information about your product or service, your website should primarily consist of content and should only contain graphics relevant to the information being provided.

This type of website should be designed to give visitors enough information to convince them to contact your business for more information. Are you selling products through your website? If so, it should be designed with the ease of ordering in mind and should contain detailed product images and descriptions while providing transaction security. If you are promoting a concert, movie, or other event, your website might contain more graphics and audio to entice website visitors to attend. In general, the design of your website should be determined by your specific objectives for the website.

Target Audience

Your website should be designed to reach your target audience and to address their specific needs. Also, consider how the design and tone of your website helps to convey your business brand to your target market. For example, if you provide business services, your website should convey a professional and conservative image, while a website targeting children will require a more colorful and friendly approach. Unless you are targeting a high-tech audience, use online technologies conservatively to ensure that site visitors do not miss your message due to technical issues. Other demographics such as gender and age also affect design choices including language, color, and technology.

Content and Text

The content is the most important aspect of your website. Take the time to tailor the content of your website to reach your target audience and consider hiring a copywriter to provide the content, if necessary. As you prepare your content, include information that explains the benefits of using your product or service. Good content not only provides information about your business to potential customers, it also keeps site visitors interested in staying on and returning to your website. Another advantage of well written, keyword rich content is that it allows people to easily find your website in search engines which will attract more visitors to your website.

The actual text on your website should be easy to read and the text size should not be too large, too small, or set in all caps (WHICH COMES ACROSS AS SHOUTING).

Style, Color, and Graphics

The style, graphics, and color of your website should be consistent with your current business brand and image. The colors used should be complementary and should not obscure the text from being easily read. The visual images, or graphics, on your website should enhance the overall message that you are communicating to your site visitors, and should only be used as necessary to add to your message. Overuse of images, as well as images that have not been properly compressed, can slow the load time for your web pages and cause visitors to leave your website before they receive your intended message.

In general, a comprehensive design plan is essential to getting successful results from your website, and it is an important component that you and your web designer should consult on together to ensure that your completed website achieves its goals.

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