So, You Need a New Website - Part 3

Introduction This is the final installment of a 3-part article where I provide a stage by stage process to develop a website for your company and/or organization. If you haven’t already, I highly suggest reading parts 1 & 2 before you read this article as it will help you in answering all the questions you need to before you start developing your new website.

In Parts 1 & 2, we discussed:

• Stage 1 - the need to go through a branding process • Stage 2 – how to choose a domain name and suffix • Stage 3 - the different types of websites you can choose for your company/organization • Stage 4 – deciding on the type of applications your website needs • Stage 5 – figuring out how your website should be developed, and by whom • Stage 6 – choosing who will host your website.

And now, last but certainly not least, you get to see all of your preparation and planning come into fruition.

Stage 7 – Develop your website If you have hired a designer/developer to create you website for you, most of your work is done. All you have to do is sit back and say I like it, or I hate it. It is, however, important to be at least aware of the process in order to get the most out of your website.



The production meeting Typically, to start the process rolling, a production meeting is in order. In this production meeting (and if you are creating the website yourself, you will be the chair), the details of the website will be ironed out. Decisions will be made, such as: exactly how many pages will be developed and what they are; what will the content (text) say; what type and how are the images going to be acquired; what is the colour pallet going to be; how exactly is your applications going to be set up. The more detail that can be decided on at this meeting, the better. Often, the designer/developer will come with a couple of samples of what the website could look like, and how it should be navigated.

Another decision that has to be made is how scalable your website will be on different sizes and resolutions of monitors. For example, how easy will it be to view your website on mobile browsers (using PDAs or cell phones)? Will your website be accessible to individuals with physical challenges? It is important to make these decisions sooner rather than later as they will seriously affect the design and structure of your website.

It is my belief that if you meet the following minimum standards (able to display on a 15 inch screen at a resolution of 1024/768, and are able to view the pages properly in both Internet Explorer and Firefox) you have satisfied the majority of your viewers. Remember, your website is a living, breathing thing, and it can be adjusted based on responses to it, and your web statistics (to be discussed later).

Search Engine Optimization If the success of your website is mainly determined by the amount of traffic you get, you will need to focus a lot on SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, it is a process your website goes through to improve its ranking on popular search engines. With over a billion web pages currently on the Internet, SEO has become a vital aspect of any website building. SEO is an ongoing process, and you or your designer/developer will want to monitor it on a regular basis.

When you are creating your site, make sure you or your designer/developer creates your website to be search engine friendly, by creating meta-tags (lines of code that communicate with the search engine robots) with the proper headers and content based on popular keywords, and create external links to legitimate websites that relate to yours. And make sure that all of your links are straight text hyper links, and not within images or flash files.

You will also want to register your website with all the major search engines. Be aware that it may take your site several weeks to show up. For sites that need to focus a lot on increasing traffic, there are companies out there that, for a modest fee, will register your website on up to 100 search engines at one time, and help you choose key words that will help your ranking.

To go through the entire list of things you can do to improve your ranking on search engines would take more than one article. There are several good books out there that can take you through the process. At the very least, make sure you or your designer/developer creates the site to be as search engine friendly as possible.

Develop your index page and one sub-page In order not to waste everyone’s time, the index page (home) and another page should be developed and tested out. Initially, you should develop only two pages, because if there needs to be a major shift in design, it can be done with minimal time wasted. If there are sections of your website that have a significantly different design than the rest, a page should also be developed from that section. Depending on how the first draft goes, this can be a very short or very long process. Basically, you want to be happy and satisfied with these first two pages before moving on. And don’t let yourself, or your designer/developer, rush this process, because when it comes down to it, it is your website and you and/or your company will be judged on it. Once all parties agree that the design is what you were looking for, the rest of the pages and the applications can be developed.

Complete the website Once all of the pages and applications have been developed, you will need to go through the site with a fine tooth comb. Check all the content, links, and applications. Check to see if the images used work and fit in; for example, is your logo properly displayed? How does your site display on all the different browsers. It is also recommended that you get some outside opinions from your peers, co-workers, clients/customers, and anyone else whose judgement you trust. Be careful, however, and be picky as to who and how many people you get comments from. Feedback can be very useful, but too much, or the wrong kind, can make the process longer and more complex than it has to be.

And if you are developing an e-commerce site, or a site with complex applications, especially if there is sensitive data being transferred, you will want to do some serious testing of accuracy (is the application doing exactly what it is supposed to do); speed (it is suggested that a web page take no more than 4 seconds to download at high-speed); and security.

If you have hired a developer, he or she will do most of the rigorous testing. If you have the time and the funds, however, it can never hurt to get a second opinion. If you are creating or installing the application yourself, test it out using fake data. If it is an e-commerce site, contact that company that offers you secure payment. Most of them will allow you to put several fake transactions through to see if everything is working properly.

So your website has been built, you have gotten feedback on the design, content, and usability, you have tested out the applications, and now it is time for what you have been working so hard for - making your website live.

Maintain and Develop Congratulations, your website is up and running. Now, make sure you promote it through your other marketing items, like your business card, letterhead, your email signature, and other marketing materials.

You will also need to make sure that you keep your website current. This could mean adjusting pages with new services, changing date sensitive material, and even contact information. There are three main ways you can keep your website up to date. You can hire your website guy or gal to do it; get them to create templates and teach you how to use ftp software; or, you can ask your designer/developer to create or install a CMS. CMS stands for Content Management System. There are a lot of choices of CMSs out there, ranging from free to a significant amount, depending on how extensive you updates need to be.

You are also going to need to track your website. The amount of information you can track is almost endless From the amount of visitors and hits your website gets and what pages are the most popular, to the browsers, screen resolution and Operating System, etc. your viewers are using. Use this information to adjust your SEO process, the content and the way your website is displayed.

Conclusion If you have followed this process right from article 1, I thank you for your time and I hope this has been helpful. It would be impossible for me to go through all the details and give a thorough explanation of the elements of website development within the confines of this article. But I hope you have a better understanding of the process and have learned the important questions you need to answer to get the most out of your new website.

Got a question? Feel free to contact me at: info@virtuecreativedesigns.ca



So, You Need a New Website - Part 3 - To learn more about this author, visit Kevin Virtue's Website.

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