The Basics
You have a flourishing business – everything is in
its place. You just miss one important piece of marketing:
an Internet Presence a website. Like everything in business,
getting a website needs planning. Getting an effective website
needs even more planning.
Here are some basic things to know and plan:
The WWW
What is the www or the internet? Basically a network of
websites from all over the world you can access via your
computer for which you need an internet connection and a
browser. Internet connections are available from ISPs, and
most of the popular browsers are free downloads from the
internet. Just like writing/typing an address on a postal
envelope, you type the website address in the browser beginning
with http://www. and ending with
either .com, .net, .org, .biz, .nz, .uk, etc. So if you want
to access the microsoft website, you would type http://www.microsoft.com in
the browser and hey, presto! You get all the information
about microsoft and its products on your browser. Just click
on the available links and you are on your way.
Your Website
Your website will be a bunch of pages all linked together
via hyperlinks. You can ofcourse have a one-page website
or as many pages as you like - depending on the amount of
information you want to share with your visitors. Hyperlinks
are text or images pointing to another page, just like the
heading of this article points to my website.
Your Audience
As the web has grown, so has the types of people who access
it and how they access it. As we say, it is impossible to
please everybody. It is very difficult to design a website
which will be accessible to all. Carefully choose your content
and design, keeping in mind who your target audience is and
what type of equipment they use. Equipment here means the
computer and other hardware and also includes the software
used for connecting to the internet and browsing it.
The best way to reach more people is to use pure HTML, and
keep the use of scripting languages like JavaScript, Java,
and other plug-ins to the minimum. While this may not make
your site flashy,stylish or trendy, you will have the satisfaction
of knowing that your site is accessible to most of the people.
Afterall, that is the whole point of this exercise, right?
Designing your website means knowing your audience and their
requirements.
Content
Now that introductions are over, lets get down to the core
of your website: Content. The most important aspect of any
website, content is the one thing that will keep your visitors
at your site and keep bringing them back. The content should
depend on what you want to let your visitors know - about
the company, the products, the services. Keep the content
interesting, updating it often for repeat visitors. Often
this can mean providing more details about different aspects
in your business, like seasonal discounts, etc. Your visitors
will visit your site again and again if the content is relevant,
and there is something new everytime they visit.
Layout
A well laid out website will be a successful one. Whether
you design the site yourself, or outsource the task to a
webdesigner like us, first layout your ideas on paper. Choose
text, color and graphics carefully, they all contribute to
the page load time. Starting with your Home Page, keep it
fast-loading, with a good navigational structure. Try to
follow the same layout for the whole website. Change the
layout only for different sections and not different pages.
If the navigation bar is at the top on your HomePage, keep
it at the top in all the other main pages. Consistency in
layout is very, very important.
These are just some of the basics about building a website.
There are many more, some requiring a article all about themselves.
Keep visiting, as I plan to write about as many as I can.
Ofcourse, you are welcome to email me
your suggestions/comments about what you would like to read
about in webdevelopment.
D.zigns dzignerwebs
| Tasneem Rangoonwala is the Web Development
Co-ordinator in D.zigns
Enterprise Solutions, offering web design and related
services as a freelancer. |
