Web design is the process of planning and creating the way your website will look
and feel. It is the first part of creating your website and is the stage where you
can implement your creative ideas, branding and visual appeal.
Planning
As with any marketing strategy or project, thorough initial planning is essential. Planning a website involves considering its role in your business plan and allocating sufficient resources to the development and upkeep of the page. At the planning stage, answer the following important questions.
1. What is the purpose of your website? Try to summarise your goals and objectives in two sentences, and let this definition inform every stage of the development process. Our website should be easy to find for people looking for gardening services in the Cape Town area. Visitors should request a quote and contact us by email. We want our website to rank high in search results and draw traffic to our active Facebook Page. We also want to generate prospective leads with our email newsletter subscription. Our website must provide useful content for people in the book publishing field. We want to entrench our position as the leading book publishers in our genre.
2. What do you need on your website? Make a list of all the tools and functions that are essential for your website, and be strict with yourself not to include unnecessary extras. This list is important because if your project goes over budget, you will know which elements are not negotiable, and which can safely be cut. In strictest terms, the only essential aspects of a website are the home, about and contact pages, a navigation bar and your corporate branding; however, this would make for a bland site. Let your website’s purpose guide you.
3. What do you want on your website? Once you have noted the essentials, think of the other useful elements that it would be good to have on your website. Again, be careful not to add frivolous and excessive details. Some useful additions include:
• A contact form that your customers can fill out, so that you can get their contact details along with their permission to send them emails.
• One-click sharing on your content so that readers can instantly post your content to their Facebook, Twitter and other profiles (more on this in chapter 7).
• An automated feedback form for complaints and queries.
4. How much control do you want over managing the website? Do you want to be able to do everything yourself, or would you prefer for your developer or IT department to manage your page and update your content? In addition, consider how often the content will change: if you post a blog article every day, it is easier and quicker to manage the website in-house, but if the content is relatively static, you can safely leave your developer to manage it.
Visual aspects of your website
Once you have planned out the overall holistic aspects of your website, you can begin thinking about the way that it actually looks and behaves. Be careful not to get too carried away by the potential of what you can include on your page – start simply, and you can always grow the content from there. In addition, remember that your website is for your customers and visitors, not for you – don’t add elements just because you like them; your primary consideration should be if they add any value to your target market. The “keep it simple” rule applies here.
Design considerations
Your website is a public face for your business and its design should therefore be treated with considerable care and consideration. One of the first steps you should take is to research your competitors’ pages to get a general feel for what your industry’s standards and expectations are. Also have a look at pages of companies in related industries for ideas. Be sure that any design you choose is appropriate for your type of business. For example, here are four websites for legal practices.
All four pages have a very conservative design and favour black, white and shades of grey over bright colours. This is in line with the professional and serious image that legal professionals aim to portray to their customers. This also speaks to the target market, which is a related and important point. While it may seem like a good idea to create a website that is radically different from your competitors’, so that you stand out, this tactic is likely to backfire unless you have done some extensive research. This is because your target market has already defined the standards for your industry and has certain set expectations. A lawyer’s website filled with brightly coloured animations and an unusual layout will be dismissed as untrustworthy, regardless of the actual content and reputation. However, you can still come across as professional and trustworthy by doing something different, within these parameters. Another important consideration is that your website must fit in with your overall corporate identity (your company’s logo, colours and print designs). Creating a holistic and uniform brand image is vital and your website – as an integral part of your strategy – must fit in with your other marketing communications. Your designer will be able to advise you on adapting your corporate identity for the web, since this involves considerations like using web-safe colours and fonts (see section 4.2.4).
As with any marketing strategy or project, thorough initial planning is essential. Planning a website involves considering its role in your business plan and allocating sufficient resources to the development and upkeep of the page. At the planning stage, answer the following important questions.
1. What is the purpose of your website? Try to summarise your goals and objectives in two sentences, and let this definition inform every stage of the development process. Our website should be easy to find for people looking for gardening services in the Cape Town area. Visitors should request a quote and contact us by email. We want our website to rank high in search results and draw traffic to our active Facebook Page. We also want to generate prospective leads with our email newsletter subscription. Our website must provide useful content for people in the book publishing field. We want to entrench our position as the leading book publishers in our genre.
2. What do you need on your website? Make a list of all the tools and functions that are essential for your website, and be strict with yourself not to include unnecessary extras. This list is important because if your project goes over budget, you will know which elements are not negotiable, and which can safely be cut. In strictest terms, the only essential aspects of a website are the home, about and contact pages, a navigation bar and your corporate branding; however, this would make for a bland site. Let your website’s purpose guide you.
3. What do you want on your website? Once you have noted the essentials, think of the other useful elements that it would be good to have on your website. Again, be careful not to add frivolous and excessive details. Some useful additions include:
• A contact form that your customers can fill out, so that you can get their contact details along with their permission to send them emails.
• One-click sharing on your content so that readers can instantly post your content to their Facebook, Twitter and other profiles (more on this in chapter 7).
• An automated feedback form for complaints and queries.
4. How much control do you want over managing the website? Do you want to be able to do everything yourself, or would you prefer for your developer or IT department to manage your page and update your content? In addition, consider how often the content will change: if you post a blog article every day, it is easier and quicker to manage the website in-house, but if the content is relatively static, you can safely leave your developer to manage it.
Visual aspects of your website
Once you have planned out the overall holistic aspects of your website, you can begin thinking about the way that it actually looks and behaves. Be careful not to get too carried away by the potential of what you can include on your page – start simply, and you can always grow the content from there. In addition, remember that your website is for your customers and visitors, not for you – don’t add elements just because you like them; your primary consideration should be if they add any value to your target market. The “keep it simple” rule applies here.
Design considerations
Your website is a public face for your business and its design should therefore be treated with considerable care and consideration. One of the first steps you should take is to research your competitors’ pages to get a general feel for what your industry’s standards and expectations are. Also have a look at pages of companies in related industries for ideas. Be sure that any design you choose is appropriate for your type of business. For example, here are four websites for legal practices.
All four pages have a very conservative design and favour black, white and shades of grey over bright colours. This is in line with the professional and serious image that legal professionals aim to portray to their customers. This also speaks to the target market, which is a related and important point. While it may seem like a good idea to create a website that is radically different from your competitors’, so that you stand out, this tactic is likely to backfire unless you have done some extensive research. This is because your target market has already defined the standards for your industry and has certain set expectations. A lawyer’s website filled with brightly coloured animations and an unusual layout will be dismissed as untrustworthy, regardless of the actual content and reputation. However, you can still come across as professional and trustworthy by doing something different, within these parameters. Another important consideration is that your website must fit in with your overall corporate identity (your company’s logo, colours and print designs). Creating a holistic and uniform brand image is vital and your website – as an integral part of your strategy – must fit in with your other marketing communications. Your designer will be able to advise you on adapting your corporate identity for the web, since this involves considerations like using web-safe colours and fonts (see section 4.2.4).