How To Make Sure Your Website Design Process Is Successful
If you run a business today, you need to have a website. Without one, it’s almost like you don’t exist! This is the first place most people will go to learn more about your company. You have to make sure it is attractive and user-friendly so that they don’t click away. This is where the website design process comes in.
The Importance Of The Process Of Website Design
Creating a website is a colossal task. You need to be able to appropriately blend form and function so that visitors to your website understand your products and company but also interact with your brand and become customers. This means that every element of your website needs to serve a specific goal.
Since websites are stupendously intricate, you cannot make a good one just by throwing some lines of code around. Slapping on some attractive visuals without thinking it through will not help you either. This is why you need to carefully outline and plan your website design process to ensure the best possible outcome. Let’s now dive into the steps of the web designing process!
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The Website Design Process In 7 Steps
1. Identify Your Goals
This is the foundation of the website design process. If you’re unclear about what you’re trying to achieve, your message won’t be clear either! Once you know what you want, make a written list and discuss it with the web design company you hire.
While thinking about your goals, have the characteristics of your brand at the forefront of your mind. In addition, look at your competitors’ websites and see what works and what doesn’t. Finally, focus on your audience. After all, the website is for them! Create detailed profiles of your customers so that you have a better grasp of what your target audience is like.
2. Define Your Scope
If you’re not careful, you can find yourself going down the wrong path. Naturally, as the project progresses, you will have more insight and hence more ideas that you will want to implement. While any ideas that crop up might be useful to your brand – such as building a web app – you need to remain realistic. Remember that you are pouring money into this project! The more steps you add, the longer it will take and the more expensive it will be.
One way to ensure that you stay within your decided timeframe and budget is to make use of a Gantt chart. This kind of graphic can help you to set achievable goals. It is also a great way to ensure that you stay focused on the task at hand. Here’s the framework of a Gantt chart:
3. Create Your Sitemap And Wireframe
The sitemap of a website defines its architecture. It outlines the relationships between the different pages on your website. It is a crucial blueprint that you need to solidify before you continue because it gives your website designers a clear picture of how to build your website.
A wireframe is similar to a sitemap but on the design side. It lets you sketch out the design and content elements of your website. A wireframe is only a guide for how you want your website to look – there are no final design elements on it.
4. Create Content
Here comes the fun part! But before you start to create content, you must know why you’re developing it. Typically, content serves two functions: engagement and SEO. Engagement refers to how invested your readers are in your website. If you attractively present well-written content, visitors are more likely to turn into customers.
SEO (or search engine optimization) helps people find your website in the first place. The better your SEO is, the more likely your website will get featured on search engine result pages. SEO is a vast universe in itself, but the main thing you need to keep in mind is to use popular keywords throughout your content.
5. Add Visual Elements
As you might imagine, the branding that you already have will heavily influence the visual elements of your website. That being said, it still plays a crucial role in the success of a website. Because of our shortening attention spans, visual content is a great way to increase engagement and, ultimately, revenue.
6. Test Your Website
Does your content have any typos? Are all your images loading perfectly? You will need to ask yourself questions like these while testing your website. You must also ensure all your links work and that your page loads correctly on different browsers and devices. This is the stage where you run a fine-toothed comb through all your work and fix any errors you might find.
You can also get some users to test your website. This will not only give you fresh eyes on what you have created, but it will also help you ensure that your site appeals to your target audience.
7. Launch Time
Finally, you are ready to launch your website. Once you have tested everything and are happy with what you’ve created it’s time to reveal your website. Remember, you might encounter some glitches even after you launch, but don’t let this stress you out.
The website design process doesn’t end once you have launched. It never really ends! Like any other tool, you have to keep cleaning up your website and tinkering with it along the way. The field of web design is constantly evolving, and you should strive to include new features and ideas that turn up.
The process of website design is complex and takes a lot of patience. Don’t be disheartened if you struggle to get things right the first time around.
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Need Help With Your Website Design Process?
iTrobes is a web design company that can help you build your website from start to finish. Our expert designers and developers will work closely with you to turn your ideas into reality. We also offer around-the-clock customer support so that you will always have a helping hand. What are you waiting for? Write to us today to get started!
