The Web Guys

Your website is where your business resides online. So you should put effort to ensure that its designed in such a way that it supports your business goals.

1. HAVE A CLEAR NAVIGATION SYSTEM
Always pay attention to how the users navigate through your website. Make sure you have clear directions on the navigation of your website. The navigation menus and links should be uncluttered and concise so that visitors know how to navigate around your website without confusion.

2. THE FEWER THE IMAGES THE BETTER
Web design trends have now moved towards minimalism, i.e the fewer elements on your website the better. So where possible, reduce the number of images on your website. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure they are optimized to a minimum file size.

3. OPTIMISE YOUR TEXT
Its an open secret that people nowadays are not fans of reading. So, keep your text paragraphs at a reasonable length. If a paragraph is too long, you should split it into seperate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.

4. COMPLY WITH WEB STANDARDS
Make sure your website complies to web standards at www.w3.org and make sure they are cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks horribly in Firefox and Opera, you will lose out on a lot of prospective visitors.
5. AVOID UNNECESSARY SCIPTS
Avoid using scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Use CSS to style your page content because they save a lot of work by styling all elements on your website in one go.

Before the first graphic is drawn or the first line of code is written, you must define the website’s budget, purpose, target audience, design, navigation, and content. And when that’s all said and done you must define the marketing that will bring visitors to your site. The only life a website has is the one given to it by its designer and owner. If the human element doesn’t do a good job of defining the building blocks, the website will serve no purpose and eventually die a digital death.
So, building an effective, well-designed website that works for its owner, that actually serves a purpose, is all about definition.
1. DEFINE THE BUDGET
Every website, no matter how large or small, must have a realistic budget, with “realistic” being the key word. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with a potential client as they listed off the eight million cool things they wanted their website to do, only to find out that their budget was just a few dollars.
2. DEFINE THE PURPOSE
Every website must have a purpose. Purpose drives everything: the audience, the design, the navigation, the content, and the marketing. I could do an entire column on purpose, but suffice it to say that there are five categories of purpose under which most websites fall: the purpose to inform, to educate, to entertain, to generate leads, to sell, or a combination thereof. If you fail to define the purpose of the website, all else is just wasted effort.
3. DEFINE THE TARGET AUDIENCE
Your target audience refers to that segment of the public that you hope to attract to the site. For example if you sell shoes, your target audience would be anyone with feet. Taking it a step further, if you only sold women’s shoes, your target audience would be women (with feet) Why is defining your target audience so important? If you have no idea who your audience is, how can you expect to design a website that will appeal to them? Your target audience could be customers, investors, job seekers, info seekers, etc. Define your target audience, then figure out how to serve them.
4. DEFINE THE DESIGN
Website design theory has changed over the last couple of years, primarily because the search engines now ignore graphic heavy websites and give preference to those that take a minimalistic approach to design. If you look at some of the big boy websites like Google, Apple, Oracle, and others you will see that in many cases the only graphic on the homepage is the company’s logo. Search engines now give higher preference to websites that offer keyword-rich text over flashy graphics. Don’t fight the design trend. You will lose.
5. DEFINE THE NAVIGATION
Bad navigation is the number one reason website visitors abandon a website. Navigation refers to the chain of links the visitor uses to get around your site. If your site has an illogical navigational hierarchy or too few or too many links or is simply impossible to get around, you’ve got problems. We live in a microwave society. We stand in front of the microwave tapping our foot and glaring at our watch wondering why it takes so damn long for a bag of popcorn to pop. Why can’t a three-minute egg be done in thirty seconds? If it takes a visitor more than 3 clicks to get to any page on your site, your navigation needs improvement.
6. DEFINE THE CONTENT
Content refers to the information on your website, be it graphics, text, downloadable items, etc. Since the top search engines no longer use HTML Meta tag data to index websites, it is vital that your website content be text heavy, succinct and well-written to appeal to the search engine spiders.
7. DEFINE THE BUILD METHOD
Next, who will build the website for you? Will you do it yourself using one of the point and click website builders or will you hire the kid next door? Will you hire a freelance designer or a professional firm? Budget usually dictates the build method, but be warned, when it comes to website development, you get what you pay for. Sure, the kid next door will throw up a site for you if you buy them a pizza or make your daughter go to the prom with them, but you will end up a with a website that looks like and performs like it was designed by the kid next door.
8. DEFINE THE MARKETING
If you build it, will they come? Not on your life, at least not without a good marketing campaign. Your website should become a part of all your marketing efforts, online and off. Put the website address on your business cards, brochures, letterhead, and all collaterals. Include the address in your ads; print, TV and radio. If you prefer to do online marketing, figure out where your target audience surfs and advertise there. If marketing is foreign to you, do yourself a favor and call in an expert. Many businesses fail because they simply do not know how to market their products and services effectively. This is also the downfall of most business websites.

HERE'S TO YOUR SUCCESS!