Have you ever wondered why some web sites look like the marvels
of creativity and some look like specifically created to
confound visitors? Ideally, no individuals make a web site to
inconvenience their visitor but end up doing so because no
serious thought is put into the planning face.
Your web site on the Net is your virtual office - it represents
you on the Information Superhighway, where the traffic moves at
a lightening speed, and within a couple of seconds a particular
web site has to catch the fancy of the surfer. And since there
are thousands of choices for a surfer, he/she just has to click
the mouse button to move to the next web site.
Frankly, I would never like to address the casual future web
master. I assume if you are reading this article, you mean
business, you mean to do business from your web site. It's like
your real-world office. Wouldn't you spend time on planning and
designing of your brick and mortar office? People even hire
outside interior designers to come up with a quality office.
Same applies to your virtual office. People are going to come,
if they like the surrounding, they'll linger on, and if they
appreciate what you are trying to convey, they would preferably
like to do business with you. If you plan to do business, your
virtual office is as important as your real-world office, more
if you want to attract the international clientele.
You cannot design a web site in an atmosphere of isolation, or
as a le Castaway. Talk to people around you, talk to your
friends, ask them what's their experience on the Net, what sort
of designs they like or dislike.
So what are the factors you should take into consideration while
laying out your plan?
Start from the end result.
1. What do you want out of your web site? 2. What type of
visitors do you have in mind? 3. Is your web site going to be
theme based? 4. What should be their action and reaction once
they arrive at your site? 5. What's going to be the background
of your target visitor? 6. What hardware are they going to use
while accessing your web site? 7. By the end of 4 months, what
should you have achieved? 8. What's your technical expertise,
and do you have time to learn something new?
Two things are of primal importance - content, and how easy it
is to reach that content. If you want people to buy from your
site, don't play with them the "Treasure Hunt" game. Everything
should be there within the reach of a single click. If you want
your visitor to access a particular section, the link to that
section should be visible as soon as the first page, or for that
matter, any page of your web site comes up.
You should know what sort of people are going to visit your
site; who are your target, and what are their behavioral
patterns. If you can manage, design your site according to the
minimum software/hardware profile so that most people can access
your site.
Having a long-term plan pays well. Especially if getting into
Yahoo! is a bog thing for you. The Yahoo! Guys don't include a
site again and again. Some people design same pages differently
for different search engines, but as a beginner, it'll only
create obfuscation. Just create an elementary, user-friendly,
easily navigable site, put in lots meaningful content, and
submit it manually to the main search engines. You can get a
list of submission links at
http://www.bytesworth.com/submit_urls.asp. Some of the links
might have changed, but they were working when I was updating
the page.
For a comprehensive list of guidelines on how you should be
designing a web site for maximum usability, pay a visit to
http://www.w3c.org.
About the author:
Amrit Hallan is a freelance web designer. For all web site
development and web promotion needs, you can get in touch with
him at amrit@bytesworth.com or http://www.bytesworth.com. For
more such articles, visit http://www.bytesworth.com/articles You
can subscribe to his newsletter [BYTESWORTH REACHOUT] on Web
Designing Tips & Tricks by sending a blank email at
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