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Defining Objectives Designing Web Pages Publishing Website Promoting Website Tools Programming To create a commercially viable website, you need to formulate a good website idea or theme. The subject for your website ought to be something that you are interested in and knowledgeable about. The theme of your site should be focused around something you want to research and explore. To be successful, your work truly needs to be a labor of love. You do not need to be an expert in the subject area. You do, however, need to know more about the topic than most others do. The successful web development involves following phases: Defining Objectives Planning your Site Content and defining objectives is the initial phase of building a successful high-potential website. Discover the optimal niche for your website, find correct keywords and choose the most profitable website concept for you, then make your concept ever more profitable by analyzing and using the competition. Build website structure that is optimal from the point of view of both human visitors and search engine spiders. When starting a web site project, you must first clarify what the goals of the website are. Knowing your goals will impact the choices you make when putting the web site together and ultimately contribute to its success or failure. This may sound obvious, but many web sites seemed to have been put together without the goal kept in mind. The result is a messy web site that is disorganized and harder to build and maintain. So if, for example, the goal is to create an e-commerce web site that sells products, then as a web site designer you have to consider things like the following:
This is just one example. The point to take away is that by defining the purpose you can better prepare and get the right tools / people for the job. Diagram the structure of the websiteA simple diagram helps to visualize the web site for both you and your client - this assuming someone has hired you to build a website. Nothing special is really needed, just a series of boxes representing each page in the site with lines connecting them showing the linking strategy. A pyramid scheme is usually used to show the hierarchy of a web site from the splash/home page down. Note: I use the terms 'splash page' and 'home page' interchangeably most of the time. There is a subtle difference from the perspective of an old-time web nerd, but for the rest of the world, it basically is the first page someone hits when they visit a website. Write out the text for the web siteBefore you start writing any HTML, you should (in your favorite word processor) write out all the text that you need to include in the website. Doing so will help you with the design process. Another thing you should do is to make sure that the text is finalized before it gets to the web site; it is much easier to correct things in a word processor than in an HTML page
Search Engine Optimization Choose a basic layout that will be used on all pagesArmed with your website diagram and your web site's text (complete text!) you can now choose a basic layout for your pages. You can go crazy with some funky artsy web site (and sometimes it can work), but most of the time you should use standard layouts that people are used to:
When in doubt, think of how books are laid out. Choose the basic color scheme and fonts for the siteYour next task is to start considering the basic colors and fonts that you're going to use. You want to choose a style that fits the subject of the web site. For example: pink doesn't do well for a hardware store, maybe some steel blues instead! The point to take away is to establish the style of the web site before you start creating pages, otherwise you may find yourself doing pages over again!
Web Design
HTML
Web Graphics
Choosing & Registering Domain Names
Web Hosting Upload your website to the hosting company's serverOnce you created your web site, paid for your domain name, and picked your hosting company, it's time to upload the web site onto your host server for the world to see. Typically, you would use something called FTP to do this; you hosting company should be able to help you with the details when setting up your account.
Website Builders
The following Web page design tips will help you design Web pages which are logically organized and user-friendly... SBI is a highly recommended tool for business website developers with very less web development knowledge and need to build a business with higher success rate. For details please visit SBI Home Page Keep it simpleOne of the most important things to remember when designing a Web page is to keep it simple. You do not need fancy graphics, Flash, Java, scrolling text and the like. Don't try to impress anyone with your Web building skills. All you need is a professional logo, a crisp, fresh look and simple navigation links. Be backward compatible. Using cutting edge technology can exclude readers. Many if not most users will be at least one generation behind, so don't shut them out. Keep page size as small as possible. That means using a small logo, and images only if absolutely necessary. No one will wait 30 seconds for your page to load. When designing Web pages, it is typically a good idea to avoid nested tables (i.e., tables inside tables) and long vertical tables, as they take a long time to load. Ideally, your pages should consist of stacks of tables, which make your pages appear to load faster, as the top tables load first, giving the user something to read while waiting for the rest of your page to load. Provide useful informationMost people use the Web to find information that they can actually use. So make sure that your readers will find your information useful for them. Design Web pages so that all important text and images are above the fold. This is the part of the page that your users will see first. The most significant information should be accessible to users without scrolling down the page. People will scroll, but only if they think there's something of interest to them on your page. Home pageHome page should contain links to site's sections, and possibly directly to articles you want visitors to get right into. Make sure the first thing your home page displays is a reason for visitors to stick around. Visitors should immediately learn what the site is about and what it's offering them. You need to answer these questions and do it fast. Surfers are a very impatient group. Stop them before they click away. You can pull this off by displaying a few lines of text prominently, where your visitors will see it right away. You'd be amazed at the number of Web sites that leave this out. If your visitors are forced to search for how your site may help them, it's too late, they're gone. Some sites use so called "splash screen," a page designed to act like a magazine cover. This page can add style to the site and serve as a ceremonial front door, but because they present less information than a home page, some users find them annoying. HeadlinesAlways start your pages with the headlines - everyone reads them. Design Web page headlines so that they grab the eye, intrigue and captivate the reader. Their sole aim is to make the reader continue on to read the body text. Use plenty of subheadings. They should expand upon the story hinted in the main heading, and draw the reader inexorably into reading the body text. Format them as separate lines, or as a lead-in sentence to a paragraph. Bold text stands out. It's best to use it sparingly, such as for lead-in headings at the start of a paragraph. Use italics for emphasis. Italics can help make your text sound more conversational. People read bulleted text. Condense important points to bulleted lists. Design Web pages for easy readingWhen designing Web pages, it is a good idea to avoid wide text running from one side of the screen to the other, as this can result in lines of text that are so long they're very difficult to read. You can control the length of your text by creating HTML tables that are specified in pixels, rather than in percents. A good width for a line of text is between 60-70 characters (400-500 pixels). It's more important for Web page design to make your text readable than to fill every inch of the screen. In order to avoid large text blocks, break up text into smaller sub-categories. This will make your Web page more aesthetically pleasing, and more reader-friendly. Sub-categories also allow readers to select certain portions of content that they are interested in, rather than making them sift through large text blocks. Make sure that your paragraphs are not too long - each paragraph should be no more than 3 or 4 sentences long. People on the Web simply don't have the time or the inclination to read long paragraphs. If you combine text and images, use contrasting colors and blur the background image. In addition, this Web page design tactic also helps to reduce the size of images, allowing your page to load faster. Link Exchange at iWEBTOOL.com |
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