website
How to Analyze a Website
How to analyze a website is the first, and most important step, in the website design process. It requires answering several questions about this website you’re going to create. Now’s the time to start a journal. Write down the following questions and give some serious thought to your answers.
Why are you creating this website?
Your answer is important. It will determine the content, design and development of your pages. Do you have some interesting information you’d like to share? Do you have a product or service to sell? Do you want to display your artistic/creative talent? Do you have some terrific website links you want to let the world know about? Really think about this and then write down your thoughts.
Another way to think about this question is what is the goal of this website? Is it to entertain, instruct, inform, persuade, share, sell or display? The answer will provide you with direction and focus as you design your site and help you to develop your theme.
Who is my target audience?
What type of visitors do I want my site to attract? What are the demographics of your audience. What will be their age, sex and education? Will they search out my site because we share a special interest, do the same kind of things or are they looking for specific information? Is my target audience the business community, stay-at-home moms, artists, or sports enthusiasts? Or is it a combination of several groups?
Be as specific as you can about this. Try to pinpoint a certain type of individual then learn as much about them as you can so you can tailor your website to suit them. The key to website success lies in your ability to express your message in such a way as to create interest for your visitors. You can’t do this unless you know who they are.
How can I communicate effectively?
Once you know who the audience for your website will be, what is the best way to communicate with them? Are they looking for a fancy site with lots of interactivity? Do they want all the information on the first page? Would they prefer the content be categorized so that they can access only the section they want? Do I need to include an order form? Would a message board be a good way to communicate?
The way your visitors perceive your message will determine how they react to it. If you are seeking to sell something to your visitors make that clear from the start. People don’t like to be fooled into taking action. Be clear and forthright in your method of communication and your website will stand with the best of them.
What information do I need?
If you are designing a site for a client, you will need to know the answers to the preceding questions as well as what their vision is for their site. Do they have a logo they want you to use, do they have specific colors in mind, do they want to include phone and fax numbers on their pages? If this is your own business site, these are questions you should answer also.
When creating a personal website, such as one providing links to other sites, it is considered good netiquette to contact the site owners and let them know you are linking to their pages. An advantage to this is that often they will provide a reciprocal link to your site!
If you are using someone else’s graphics and/or pictures, you should request their permission and plan on providing a credit link somewhere on the page where they are displayed. Are you going to have a message forum on your site? Are you going to have an e-mail list for informing visitors of updates or new content? These are all things you need to consider…and make note of in your journal.
What content (data, graphics, photos, etc.) will be included?
This is the big job…gathering all the content that you want to include on your website. Are you going to use photos? What kind of graphics do you want? And what information or data are you putting online! Are you going to provide tutorials? Right now, just make a list of the items you think you will want to have on your website…you don’t need to gather it all together yet.
Make notes about what you need to do such as scan photos or documents, locate or create graphics, write tutorials, sort and organize data. This is a good time to create folders or binders for your website project so that you can keep the content organized. You might need one folder for Graphics, one for Photos, one for Data, one for Tutorials and one for Miscellaneous information. Your content will determine the folder titles you need. Don’t let all this overwhelm you…it will all fall into place.
Planning your website
Time spent on this most important phase of website design will pay dividends in the long run. The planning that you do now will make things much easier once your website is online. There are a multitude of details that go into the design of a professional site and solid planning in the early stages of design will help eliminate problems down the road. Remember to spend as much time as necessary planning your website.
Planning and organizing are the most crucial steps in designing a website. Once you have a clear picture of what you are trying to say it will be easier to devise a plan to present this information to your visitors. Planning your website is the key to creating a website that is robust, effective and easy to maintain.
What is a Website?
A web site is totally different from any other type of publishing, advertising or communications media. When you create a brochure, magazine or book for publication, you determine content, print it and it is finished. If you are advertising a product or service on radio or television, you emphasize the name, how to get the product and do it within 15 to 30 seconds … then run the ad over and over again. None of the above will work on the Internet.
Designing for the web requires the relevant content of a brochure or magazine, the colorful look of high-quality print, and the attention-grabbing impact of television advertising. Plus it should offer a valuable product and/or information, be updated frequently and stay current with changing technology.
So the bad news is that a web site is never “done”. But the good news is that a web site is never done! You can make changes to the design and content any time you want. You can use that new background you just created or add that javascript you recently found … and you can have as many web pages online as your web host allows and you have time to create.
Types of web sites
There are really only a few types of web sites on the Internet: commercial, intranet (internal to a company or organization), topical (pertaining to a particular area of interest such as golf or travel) and personal. We will be looking at the design of commercial and/or personal sites although the principles would apply to any type of site.
Creating a strictly personal web site allows for much more leeway in design. You can be as unconventional and creative as you want. By this I mean, you can use wild colors, create any type of layout you like, ignore navigation conventions, and post information and/or graphics that are of interest to a very small number of people. A personal web site allows for complete artistic freedom and an opportunity for you to reflect your unique personality.
Do you want to use eight different fonts in four different colors on your site? Go right ahead. Do you want to post a picture of the bathrobe you got for Christmas? That’s fine. Do you really like a purple background with bright red text? You can do that. (Believe it or not, depending on the content and type of web site, that color combination could be perfect!) Is this good web page design? Not really. And, since most of us want our web sites viewed by more than a handful of relatives, design considerations are important for anyone creating a web site.
Keep in mind that a web site is your contact with the world and…
“There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.” Dale Carnegie
Revisit a few of your favorite sites and really look at them this time. Notice the colors and layout, the navigation system, the content and how it is presented. What catches your eye first? Where is it located? Is it easy to find what you want? Is it hard to read the text information? Did it take a long time to load? Now, write down what you like and don’t like about the site, what keeps you coming back and what, if anything, you’d like to use on your site. Using this information will go a long way in helping you to design your own website.
Website Building Software – Top Website Builders Reviewed
If you still think you need to pay some wizard programmer a couple grand to build you a professional looking website – I’ve got something else you might want to consider before signing that check. During this past decade technology took a giant leap in this area. You could build cleaner websites during your lunch break – than the overpriced web designers take a month to do.
Building your own website doesn’t have to be a hassle
Some people may have you believe that in order to make a website you need to be a geek with ultra high IQ, have some expensive software and spend years learning some alien looking codes. Trust me, there are other options.
Here are a few top website builders to consider:
o Site Rubix Website Creator
o Xsite Pro Webdesigner Software
o Bluevoda Website Builder
A brief overview of some of the key features of each one:
Bluevoda Website Builder – If you’re on a tight budget, this builder is definitely for you. It’s free, so if you need something to hold you over before you’re ready to invest some money into something better, this one is the way to go. It comes with an array of pre-designed templates and very easy to use. Drag and drop function is nice, no knowledge of any code required.
The downside is that you’re tied up to their host and eventually could be a problem if you’re trying to run a website which requires higher bandwidth. Hosts like that tend to run slow because of their popularity – there are currently about 3 million people who use Bluevoda.
Another big con is the fact that it can only run on Windows based platforms. So if you’re on a Mac you’re out of luck.
Xsite Pro Webdesigner Software – Regarded as one of the top builders out there for the price. This builder will set you back about $200. One of the biggest advantages of Xsite pro is that it’s the first builder built with Internet marketer’s needs in mind.
o The most regarded feature is instant SEO (Search Engine Optimization) checker. It automatically analyzes your website and suggests the best possible way for you to get listed in the search engines painlessly. This feature is what makes it unique.
o It also comes with hundreds of templates to choose from
o Automatic sitemap creation feature built-in. Another handy feature for Internet marketers
o Affiliate link wizard. A marketer’s dream. You can store all your affiliate links and just pop them in into any page at a click of a button
o Full tech support 24 hours 7 days a week, plus a user forum is nice
Again the downside is it’s only compatible with Windows systems and for the same price you could get a professional edition of Adobe Dreamweaver if you’re planning on learning more advanced techniques in the future.
Site Rubix Website Creator – This builder is by far the most versatile and user friendly I’ve ever come across. Some of its key benefits:
o Extremely user-friendly and intuitive interface. It’s also known as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). No HTML code knowledge on your part is required. You just drag and drop every component of your website into place.
o Multitude of pre-built templates to chose from
o Dynamic drag enabled menus
o Built in FTP program (most other ones don’t have this)
o Instant screenshot tool
o Template and banner swapping
o Media Management Support (Video, Images, Screenshots)
o Flexible Operating System Support
Overall I’d say Site Rubix is the best of both worlds. You can run it on either Mac or Windows based systems. And it has every feature that all the other programs offer. What makes it stand out is the fact that it’s tied into it’s own forum where not only you can learn how to build websites – you could also become a top level Internet marketing professional with the 1-on-1 coaching program that’s offered.