For online businessmen, the perfect website for their product is a most cherished dream for many of them. They deemed that the success of their online businesses hinges on the design (and the professional functionality) of the website they created (or had commissioned to build). These owners (and their marketers) know and understand why and how web design, coupled with its well-crafted professional style and functionality is regarded as the most important aspects of the website.

The following are some of the important tips and guides in how to build a website, including some of the crucial side considerations that can make or break it, depending how they are followed and implemented. Here are some of the reasons why a truly well-crafted web design brings in all the benefits you’ve all wanted and loved for your site. Designs that are good need not have to be very expensive, just well-crafted to fit in the style that works best for your business.

For designers working with their clients, this set of tips can help in your proper planning. Otherwise, this can help lay the groundwork for your coming website.

Set your purpose and goals.

Very clearly[i], set your purpose and your goals. You can write it down for frequent reference in case you unknowingly meander along the way. Define your goals in the beginning and hold on to them as you go along. It is also important to identify your website’s purpose, even including your target audience.

Set measurable, specific goals for your website that should be in line with your overall marketing goal. The analytics Google tool can help you monitor your website’s performance over time.

Setting a budget

Setting your website also means setting a budget, no matter the size of your organization. This is for your website expenses, including funds for your web design, programming and web hosting. Shop around and research the market by consulting with professionals. Don’t sell yourself short by comparing prices. What you save in money you will later pay for with a lackluster site and loads of headaches.

Choose your (designer) team based on their experience, insightfulness, references and samples of their work.

Assignment of roles

The company stakeholders include you (the owner), marketing manager, or whoever represents a primary function of the business. The other members include the web developer, the content writer and editor, the HTML/CSS professionals and the web and graphic designer.

Make sure that everyone on your team knows their roles and what is expected of them. All throughout, they need to stay abreast of deadlines and new developments.

Creating a content strategy

Define the kind of content that your website will be displaying. You also need to it down for constant reference from time to time. Content can be anything that gives your visitor information. It can include blog posts, documents, video, pictures, and slideshows and maybe embedded social media feeds (Twitter, Facebook)

The content strategy you adopt should be the way you plan to present your content over time. An example is wanting to publish two blog posts a month and putting out a free quarterly report to your subscribers to do a regular download throughout the year.

Bring in help if you need it in doing your content since it is a very vital part of website. Get yourself a writer who is experienced in writing for the web. You can also invest in some professional-looking pictures of your storefront and employees.

Structuring your website

Decide on the kind of pages you will use and what features will be on them. Most websites have an About-and-Contact page, for instance. However, the pages you use should meet your business needs.

Mock-up creation

The page mock-up (also known as a wireframe) is in essence the outline of your website. Usually created in Photoshop or Fireworks, you need not put in too many details into your mock-up.

Use a placeholder text to fill in the pages, and no worry on details. This is simply to give everyone an idea of what the website will look like.

You can always map it out with pen and paper if you don’t have a design program. When you have a general feel of what you’d like, send it over to a designer to create. (Or you can do it yourself, too).

Start the design

Good website design Brisbane has both the usability and aesthetics aspects. An ugly website will drive away visitors, much like a website that’s difficult to navigate. There are plenty of basic concepts of usability.

Some of these include making the navigation understandable and easy, use and easy-to-read font for blocks of text; have your background and text color contrast well. (Red text does not go well with pink background, for instance.)

Keep your website light so that it loads quickly, make styles and colors consistent throughout, and make your copy clear and concise and more common-sense decisions, for starters.

Compile your notes on what to include in the style sheet as you design because it is practical to keep style and function separate. This is important because it is not only compliant to web standards it makes it easier to change something in the future.

Testing

This is important in order to get the bugs out and catching other details that you might have missed out in the first place.

Ensure that your website shows up the way you want it in all browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. It should also be smooth on mobile web browsers like Safari and Opera Mini.

 Make sure, also, that your site has a consistent appearance no matter what screens they are in. Ensure all of site’s the links work, the images are properly sized, and that you’ve replaced all the placeholders with actual content.

Make sure, too, that all of the forms and other input fields are working.

Site maintenance

Your work is not over yet even if your website has been launched. The site continuously represents your company, so maintenance is necessary.

Monitor your analytics software and check how your website is performing with the public. Keep an eye on metrics (your number of unique visitors, bounce rate, and which pages are most popular on your website) to be in the know.

Have a maintenance plan for your website. Get feedback (this is a very useful tool for improvement) from your users.