A good place too start is to write a story about your business and think about what people would be looking for when they visit your web site.
- You need to put your thoughts down on paper or a computer document.
- Planning will take a lot of thought before the design of your website starts.
- You need to think about what your goals are for people visiting your website
- How visitors will navigate your website – apart from the obvious navigation links at the top of the web page.
- You need to provide meaningful information that goes beyond making a statement.
- Usually, you will give snippets of information with a link to more information – this allows a person to find what they are looking for, so a person to take further action.
- There needs to be a call to action on your website either by a form that outlines what you are after.
As a broad guideline, the basics of a web structure is as follows
- Home Page or Welcome Page
The home page is a synopsis of your business with snippets of information.
A web page normally has a sidebar where you can provide pieces of information. - About Us
This area creates trust, where you tell your story about your business - Services or products
What you are offering to people - Contact Us
Contact Details – phone number, physical address, email address
A Form to allow people to make enquiries
A Google Map, showing your location. - Links page
It’s important that you link to other websites that would be complimentary to your business.
Enter all the information above using MS Word or some other editor – even an email or Google Docs.
Attach the document to an email along with any images.
(I suggest you resize the images if you are sending these by email)
You could use Dropbox, Skydrive, Picasa or SugarSynch to share the images.
Email these to mike@nzservers.com
Search Engines
Once the website is designed you need to think about the page title that will be displayed and a brief description that describes the page a person is on.
Helpful Video from Google