Planning and Organising
Fail to plan and you plan to fail
Maybe you have a site already and want a better one. Perhaps this is your first web site for a new business venture. There again you might be asked to get a web site built for a company or organisation that you work for.
Planning well helps you save time and money.
We work in stages, each one with a tangible result such as a Brand Board, Wire Frame, Project Specification which you can use for your project with us, now or in the future. At any stage you can use these to work with any other web designer or developer
Every journey begins with the first step
Make sure you know from the outset what you want your web site to achieve. This will give you some way to measure the ROI (Return on Investment) and calculate what that investment itself involves in terms of both time and money.
The next stage is to work out what type of site you need to achieve that goal. Is it a newsletter (blog); online business card or brochure; a shop window for your goods or services; a place where people can order or buy your goods or services?
The type of site will determine what needs to be put into place to create a site.
What resources will you need to create your site?
The most important resources are you and your understanding of how you want the site to look and feel.
You will need physical assets such as web hosting and an email address; which platform to use; a bullet point list of pages and the text for those pages, plus images including a logo in the proper format for web.
Lastly time and/or money to coordinate those physical assets into a secure and stable web site that is easy to maintain.
Planning and preparation
Your bullet point page list and asset folders will have to be in place before your site can be built.
(See Planning)
Make sure your images are named sensibly and optimised for web use.
(See Image Editing)
Each item on your bullet point list should have a text file with the content laid out properly; key words or phrases and short description for the search engines.
(See Site Plan)
Someone has to prepare your assets so they can be used to build your web site. If you are cash-rich you can pay someone to prepare them for you. If you are cash-poor you can save a lot of money in development costs, either by doing this part of the work yourself.
Design & Personality
In the Initial Checklist you were asked to describe the look and feel you want for your web site. This helps establish how you envisaged engaging with your visitors; how you see yourself communicating with them and what the visitor’s expectations might be.
You were also asked how the site should look visually in terms of colours and fonts. This allows you, or your web designer, to create a consistent look and feel to your site.
At this stage it is a good idea to create your Brand Identity. This ensures your brand is clearly identifiable on web and in print.
Create a list of sites you like, or don’t like, and the reasons why. This is particularly useful if you are employing the services of a web designer.
Brand Board to Site Theme
Now that you know what content you are going to use, the platform you will be building on, and what the site should look like, it is time to choose wireframe the content for your site.
You now need to consider whether you want to choose a ready-made theme which fits your brand and content, or whether you need a custom theme built around your content.
If you are employing a designer, make sure you are happy with the Brand Board and Web Proposal including Wireframe.
Pre-Build Checklist
You can use our Timeline Checklist to help you.
Make sure you have all the following in place:
- Google Drive Account
- Bullet Point Page List
- Assets Folder complete
- Brand Board finalised
- Hosting arranged
- Theme and Plugins downloaded or approved
- License Codes, Login URLs, User Names and Passwords
