HOW TO PLAN YOUR WEBSITE

PLANNING IS THE KEY FACTOR IN ANY SUCCESSFUL WEBSITE PROJECT. Websites that go wrong are very often fatally flawed before a single page is created. For numerous reasons, the phrase ‘we need a website’ isn’t a brief, and starting out with such a loose concept is a recipe for failure.

DO PLENTY OF RESEARCH

The first job in any web project is to create a long list of critical questions that need answers. These might be about your potential visitors, the uniqueness of the site you want to create, what the initial budget will be, what ongoing costs might be, and so on.

THE SITEMAP

Ever played a computer game where you couldn’t just wander anywhere? While there are games that allow much more freedom, the majority of single player affairs are designed to guide players through a level along a predefined path, where they can interact with game-generated characters, puzzles and traps.

In many respects, a website should be much the same – because the majority of visitors will arrive at a common entrance, before travelling to the pages that they’re most interested in.

PREPARE CONTENT

Those wanting to get their website up and running as fast as possible should already have the content that they wish to use prepared well ahead of the site construction phase.

If the content is all created in advance, it’s a relatively minor exercise to populate the site with those words, images and videos – but only if they already exist.

DESIGN

Unless you’re looking to use a unique visual metaphor, there will be other sites out there which you’ve seen that incorporate elements or aesthetics that you wish to adopt. Perhaps printing some of these out, and even manually combining these with visuals (like company logos) sourced elsewhere might be a starting point.