Planning a new website

Planning a new website

A good place to begin is to look at the competitor websites to see which ones you prefer in terms of the style, colours and navigation etc

At the same time you can start to build a picture of the keyword strategies being used by the competition which has got them to those top slots on the search results pages.

Look at the natural results coming up in the main body of the results pages and compare these to the sponsored (paid for) ones appearing on the right hand side - more about this later.

Once you have done this are you are ready to go to the web designer? Well no not really, it would be better to work out your site map, or at least the initial structure before talking to the designer - that is if you need one or if the budget allows.

With so many easily customised website templates available these days it could be that you do not need a designer at all. However we believe that even the smallest most basic site will benefit from the input of a web design professional and this is especially true if the site is competing in competitive areas.

It would be good to prepare a design brief anyway and particularly to show the designer all the factors you want taken into account with the design, such as colours, style, target audience, special user features etc, as well as any limitations such as features you really do not want.

So now are you ready? Well yes and no! Many would go to the designer at this stage but it can be better and more productive to have both designer and developer present at the initial meeting, in order that both understand the budget limitations for the proposed new website. How many times have we seen fabulous designs cut back to basic html structures due to budget limitations!