Planning for a website project isn’t something the average business owner specializes in. Still, your website plays a central role in your online marketing campaign and is a reflection of your brand. Here’s a broad outline of the steps you should take:
Consider a design that’s functional and aesthetic
There are two major considerations when it comes to your website: its design and its content. Your design should tell users what your brand is about before they even get to the text.
There are a lot of different routes you can take in relation to choosing a design. According to a recent CMS Wire article, however, it’s essential that you never sacrifice function for aesthetics:
“The challenge is to incorporate elements of organic design while keeping the user experience seamless and easy to grasp. The last thing you need is to have organic design that confuses or frustrates your users. Functionality comes first. Then you can tweak the design to add creative flourishes, without complicating the journey for the users.”
Finding the right design is going to depend on your given industry. Take Pitchfork and The Ringer, for example. The two content-driven sites specialize in music reviews and sports, respectively. They have extremely simple designs that present their articles with no bells and whistles to distract the readers. In these respects, they’ve optimized their sites’ functionality and design to match their brands.
Organize your content
Your website content is the next most important thing after its design. Your content is responsible for engaging users, informing them about your business, and meeting Google’s SEO requirements.
Generating good content is more than just knowing how to write. You also have to organize your content to provide the best user experience. This Martech Advisor article stresses the importance of content hierarchy with respect to your site experience and SEO:
“The true purpose of responsive web design is to make website easily navigable across devices. While ensuing easy navigability is the task of the design and development team, the content team needs to decide the hierarchy of the content. There is significant difference between the display size of PCs and that of mobile phones and tablets. Therefore, ensuring that all the information that users expect to access up-front should be adjusted on the top section of the website.”
Providing users with the most important information sounds simple enough, but many businesses have no hierarchy in regard to their website content. This can actually be detrimental if users can’t find what they’re looking for.
Find examples of what you like
It’s not always easy to articulate exactly what you’re looking for in web design. Developers have experience working with business owners, but they’re not mind-readers. If you just say something along the lines of: “I want a simple design,” they won’t be able to narrow down your preferences by much.
It’s always good to look at other websites and see what you like. But instead of just mentioning the site as a whole, try focusing on these elements:
- Color scheme
- Typeface
- Banner
- Menus and navigation
- Scrolling
- White space
- Landing page
- Call-to-actions
Stating preferences in regard to these elements will let your developer know what you really want. If you can narrow your order to: “I’d like an engaging site that synchronizes scrolling, has a typeface similar to X website and a menu like Y website,” then you’ll be on the same page as your developer.
You don’t have to do it often, so it’s smart to take your time and get your website project done right. To talk more about planning for a website project, or anything else, contact us today.
