5 Easy Steps to Design a professional website – A Road to Success

April 15, 2020   1806 Views

Web DevelopmentNo Comments

You’ve heard the proverb, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But when it comes to the commerce industry, if the cover is not attractive, simple, and clear, people will judge the book. Here, the cover is your website, and the book is your brand. So, whether you’re a small business owner that needs to expand your market or a rookie web designer with a big project in your hand, you are probably wondering, “How the hell am I gonna design a website?”

No worries. Our web design strategy is a simple 5-step process.

1. Define the objectives and scope of the project.
2. Research the current design trends and templates.
3. Design the website.
   1. Select a technology stack
   2. Design Site Architecture
   3. Write Content
   4. Add Design elements
4. Alpha, Beta Test the developed site.
5. Register the domain, find a host, be ready with your promotions, and Launch.

Let’s look at a step-by-step guide on how to approach the process:

Define

The first step in a web-design process, is ironically, not web designing. It’s to know why you are designing and who you are designing for. Having a well-defined objective(s) makes all the future decisions easier, and sets the direction of the project.

An example of a well-defined objective would be, “To sell my product” or “To inform my audience of my services.”

Defining the scope of the project should also be done in this step. Setting clear boundaries, deliverable, and time spans, so that you get stuck with additional goals and unrealistic requests.

Research

Don’t think, “Oh, I know what my objective is. Now I’m gonna design.” Without knowing what’s trending and what the audience are gravitating towards, you might end up with a site that’s obsolete. That also doesn’t mean you plagiarize or forego your creativity. All you need are references.

Look at as many random websites as you can, jot down what you like and what you don’t. Then, start looking at your competitors (both local and global) and gather the information that are absolutely necessary for your site as well, and then add your USPs to stand out in the crowd.

Design

Select a Technology Stack: For example, if your goal is to inform audience, a CMS system, like WordPress or Joomla would be a good choice. Conversely, if you’re selling products, an efficient PHP framework would be needed.

Create a Sitemap: Do it with a pen and paper or in MS word like it’s shown here or do it with online tools. But do it. It will help you navigate the content easily.

Create a wireframe: Wireframes are essentially the blueprints of your site, a skeleton, if you may. Wireframes helps you visualize how the site will look ultimately, after applying the content and design elements.

Write content: This may look like a simple, obvious task, but as much as the cover can attract the audience, they’re still coming only for the content of the book. So, take extreme care on choosing what to tell, and how much to tell. And don’t forget to implement the SEO strategies.

Design elements: The font, colour, interface elements, visual elements, logo, and typography, all of which would probably align with the brand and its message.

Development: Once the design is finalized, the developers can start their coding process, to put all the elements in its place.

Test

Nothing can leave a viewer frustrated like a webpage that doesn’t load fast or a link that doesn’t work. The professionalism of your site is shown from the perfection of your site. So, developed sites should not be launched without an alpha, beta, and in many cases, gamma testing.

Proofread the content, make sure all functions and features are working as intended, no visual elements should break at any point, validate the compatibility of the site on multiple browsers and devices, and test the loading speed.

Launch

Although registering domain and finding host company can be done at any time during the process, it’s added in the last, to make the process organic.

After testing, transfer the site from the internal server to the live server, and voila, you are live. To make it interesting, you can sync the launch with attractive marketing strategies, to gain more instant traction.

And that’s it.

As you see, if you have a clear goal and a great team, a website design is not that difficult and challenging. That’s what we, here at Alter Ego, do. Apart from providing professional Web Design Services, we also help businesses gain and maintain online presence by offering SEO services, content management, and branding services. For more insights on who we are and what we do, visit our website and keep coming back!