The Things You Need To Know When Creating Your Own Website
There are many things to be considered when creating a website and it also depends on what the purpose of the website is, and what do you want to achieve. However, there are some golden rules that will apply to all web designs regardless the nature of the website.
Below we’ll dip into
- How to choose a domain name
- Researching your audience
- Layouts – User Friendliness
- Testing on Different Browsers
- User testing
Choosing the appropriate domain/URL.
The first step of creating a website is choosing a domain name/URL. Sometimes the best advice is – keep it simple. If possible, it’s great to include the nature of your work with the web domain. As an example, if you are selling fish tanks, then choose a domain name that includes the phrase ‘fish tanks’ – having the keyword or phrase in your web address is something that makes your life exponentially easier.
Knowing your target audience.
You can create the website the way you wanted, however, this does not guarantee your potential customer will like it. It’s important to thoroughly understand your market niche and design accordingly with your potential visitors in mind. If for example you are marketing luxury dog food, the text copy and the images you utilise will be totally different from those you would use to market a luxury car. Research shows that visitors spend no more than 5 seconds making a decision to either look further through your site, or bail out to one of your competitors. This all hangs on how catchy or sticky the web page is.
Design visitor-friendly pages.
The lay out in your website should be as easy to use/understand as possible. Planning ahead is the key, only put down the links/buttons/header that you think is absolutely essential. Envisage your page as you would like it to be in your minds eye – then get cracking with the pen or pencil and paper. Think about your visitors here too – are they likely to think it’s great? It’s not necessarily how you would like it. Is it easy enough to use or to find the information? Accordingly, you’ll save wasted effort re-jigging the design every time you have a ‘oh, this might be nice’ idea.
Checking your website behaves right in all the web browsers out there.
Browser Compatibility is vital. If you don’t have this, all the work and sweat you put into your web design will be fruitless – what’s the point if your potential customers can’t find you, or when they do they can’t view your site properly. At the moment, there are two browsers you need to think of: IE and Firefox. You need to make sure your website can be found and work properly on both. It is not uncommon for a website that works on one but not the other. You don’t want a screwed up page popping up on your visitors’ screens, and if graphics are missing or worse due to browser incompatibility that could be the least of your worries.
User Testing.
To make sure your website functions properly, once the site is set up ready to go, ask your friends use different web browsers and search for it and see whether it’s easy and straight forward to find, if there is a problem, you can fix it right away rather than wait until the website comes to live because for some fussy customers, you only get one chance, they will not come back visit again if they had negative experience with the site.
Above are just a few of the many issues one needs to bear in mind when creating a new web page. By following these tips however, you’re on the right path to building a professional website. Enjoy the ride!
Need help with your business website design? Call us today, we’re happy to help you with your questions.
Lloyd Roberts 123 Web Design Bournemouth
123 Bournemouth Web Design