Professional web design - First steps to start website designing
Will you believe me if I tell you that if you are thinking to start designing your web page you can do the following as your first steps:
Open up a new fresh document in-
Adobe Photoshop
Macromedia Fireworks or
Dream weaver
and go straight to start working on your first ever web page, I am sure you will not believe me; but if You come to know that all you need to start designing is sheet of paper and a pen will you believe me?
Why not outline your needs to make a webpage first? Asking yourself some important questions like this will surely help you find out your unique requirements.
What are your expectations from the visitors?
Do you want to sell them an online product?
Will you allow them to personally call you and even meet you?
You just want them to know your business?
Are you going to promote a business from your website?
How you want to communicate with your website visitors?
Are you going to tell them who you are?
Are you going to tell them what you specialize in?
Are you going to tell them what you do?
Are you going to tell them what you sell?
Which are the ways you want your business to come across?
You want it to be Faster or Slower, Novice or Professional? You are the one who can answer this question.
Don’t you think you need a map before you start your journey?
Let us explore an example:
And let s set our goals-
What are my main expectations from this website?
May be your answer will tell you that you want to raise awareness about your business, you have started a new Marketing Consultancy business and you want to encourage website visitors to contact you online and also you are hoping to build a client base by using may be a contact form. Potential customers should find this information useful and it should tell them why they should make use of your services.
Which people will attract to visit my website?
and your answer will again tell you about your potential customers, may be Professional people from various size of organizations who are looking for marketing services because they want to increase their exposure.
What will be the expectations of my potential customers when it comes to the feel of my website?
May be your answer to this question will tell you that your visitors will expect a professional look. They will also expect a logical navigation and lots of info about the services you are providing them. It will also tell you the nature of website; here they will not appreciate playful things like music, pictures, movies etc. They will expect information served quickly.
Other services:
Which are the services your business is going to offer them? In this Particular example you will probably offer copy writing, advertising, Public relations, brand promotion and product marketing. If these, you feel are your core services, you should have links these services or buttons on your homepage.
From the point of view of website design and structure, try to visibly separate services and other stuff.
When it comes to Deciding between Horizontal and Vertical Navigation try to choose Vertical Navigation as it is easier. Try to limit the width of your website into 760 pixels limit. this is the standard width of 800X600 resolution screens also these does not includes scroll bars.
While selecting horizontal navigation you should think of the navigation options and categories, such as “products”, “services”, “company” and “downloads”.
Why Footer is necessary?
Footers have many advantages as it includes copy write tag and also tries to help your visitors by actually ’spoon feeding’ and not letting them search the required page by themselves. After all you want to make a user friendly website don’t you?
In a nut shell:
A website which is suitable to your needs is the best website. Try to avoid the pit falls of making an unsuitable one will be the best advice for the starters.
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