Modern Websites

To build an effective website and successful website, you need to make it dynamic – not in the sense of being overloaded with flashy sparkling animated banners, but in the sense of your website being a constantly growing and changing entity with pages and features such as articles, polls, competitions, banners, reviews, products etc being modified, removed, added to, tweaked constantly.

Just as you wouldn’t go to a magazine stand and expect this months edition of your favourite magazine to be the same as last months, your website must not remain static otherwise why should anyone want to come back to visit once they have exhausted the current content.

So what does this mean – a lot of hard work. Just imagine the amount of work that goes into updating the BBC, ABC, CNN or the Times website so that it is never the same on two separate days. Obviously they have huge resources to do this which you and I do not which brings us to the main point - Organisation. and planning.

For you to be able to maintain your website in this way, it has to be built from the very beginning with properly thought out structure and organisation. Otherwise as it grows larger and larger, it will become very difficult to maintain

So how to you go about planning your website?

Simple. Get out your notebook and pen and start sketching and listing. Or better still, get yourself a website planning program such as Concept Draw (click to try Concept Draw free for 30 days)

What should you write?

 

Firstly, put down the aims and purpose of your proposed website. Next, who is the site meant for i.e. who do you expect the visitors to your site to be. Will they be the elderly, keep fit enthusiasts, young mothers, hip youths, the elderly, ill, sports fanatics, or traffic interested in a particular narrow niche such as sculpture?

 

What kind of features will your visitors be interested in or even able to cope with e.g. if your visitors will be sight impaired then why have flash animation or photos at all. If they are youths, snazzy animated flash presentation will help you capture their attention as well as get them to spread the word about your website.

Next think about the content and break it down into likely headings and list them. Your broader headings can form the main structure of your site with the sub-headings as sub-sections.

Don’t rush into implementing it, but think over it for several days. Have a look at potential competitors and see it there are things you haven’t event considered.

Assemble and arrange all the material you want to put on your site. See if it fits the categories and sections in your design. Adjust and modify you structure if you need to.

Think about what kind of media do you intend to use to present your information. Do you expect to have audio, video, presentations, FAQ, manuals and guides?

Are you planning to sell goods or services through your site and will the goods need to be delivered or downloaded or both?

Do you plan to have member only sections on your website? Then you will need a database to keep records and manage user logins and passwords.

What about contacting you? Do you have an office or shop you want people to visit? Then you will need to consider placing a map on your contact page or even better put Googles route finder to give step-by-step instructions. Otherwise, you could just add a contact form.

Finally, think about the terms and conditions you want to put on your website.

What about the technology to implement your site? The possibilities are endless depending on your website goals and material. We’ll discuss that in another section.