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Home >> Knowledge Base >>Website development
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Website Design:
A quick start
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Having a website design can
greatly improve your business and your brand
identity. It makes your business more
accessible and you can reach more customers
who need your product or your service.
But before you decide to have a
website design and build for you, consider
meditating on the following concepts so that
you can come up with a website that works
for you:
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Set website Design goals and analyze
your project.
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Before you can start planning your website
design, you must have a strong idea of what
you want to achieve for your company and
where you want to take it. Business
goals must be concise and certifiable.
Your own goals can create a unique
website design experience not just for you
but for your customers as well.
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Analyze your Website project.
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Next is to analyze your website design
project. During this stage, you collaborate
with a website designer and developer (he or
she may be one and the same or you may work
with an entire website design and
development team). They will ask
important questions to aid them in the
initial website development stages Do
not be alarmed as these are relevant to your
website’s completion. This process also
gives you a more focused view on how your
website design will work
for you:
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The website design plan.
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Now that you have defined your website
design project, the next stage deals with
the task of delegating which activities
should be accomplished by particular members
of the design and development team. It
also outlines project completion timelines
and deliverables, to give you control and a
bird’s ever view on your website design
project’s progress.
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check you competition website project.
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It is also advisable to check what your
competitors are doing online. Try to search
for companies with the same product and/or
service as you do. Take note of what they
have done well and what they have done
badly. Doing this eliminates
experimentation and allows you to focus on
areas that need improvement. Just
remember: NEVER COPY CONTENT.
You should only look at other sites to
get inspired, not to duplicate.
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Website designing/ structuring.
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Putting information on your website is not
as easy as typing what you want to say then
placing it on your website.
Identifying which information to use,
organizing them and labeling content and
specific functions of the website for easy
browsing, searching and navigation is called
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INFORMATION DESIGN.
Careful consideration of information
to showcase on your website is very
important. This aspect of
website design is also
called INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
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Website navigation/ website sitemap.
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Every website should have good navigational
design, this allows website visitors to get
to the information they want in the shortest
possible amount of time. Always
remember to follow the
three click rule:
important information should never be
more than three clicks or pages away.
At this stage, you can create a site
map - the graphical representation of how
your pages are linked together. A good
site map allows users to easily jump from
one page to the next. The site map also lets
you create a wire frame - a simple layout of
your website detailing where to put
information and features, this way you can
initially see how your website will look
like and determine which areas need
improvement.
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Website design and Development process.
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Website Design and development is the final
stage of website development. Initial
mock ups are drafted and presented to you by
your design/development team.
Iterations and changes based on your
goals are implemented. After selecting
a particular website design, development
follows. Design is converted to HTML
and is checked for consistency and browser
compatibility. The converted website
design is sent to be programmed using code
and/or script needed to interpret the design
on the internet. Finally, content is
written, edited, optimized for search engine
ranking then placed on the website for your
viewers to see.
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