Designing a Website
Website design tutorial for beginners
How to use this website design tutorial
 Designing a Website - Target audience, structure and website goalsTarget audience, structure and your website goals are the main design elements in constructing a website. Making a website is easy. Making a good website is not so easy. There are many things you have to consider if you want to design a successful website no matter if it is a commercial or personal site.Just using a stock website template is not enough. Superior website design entails many elements that are not necessarily evident. You must consider everything from target audience to website structure to defining your website goals when creating your first website.
The Steps to Successful Website DesignIf you are really serious about having a first rate website you must take into account all of the elements that professional website designers consider in their designs. This beginning webmaster's tutorial will cover those website design elements and try to make each individual step as basic as possible. But, first let's define the nature of a website and how it works.
The Definition of a WebsiteA website is an address (i.e. location/server) on the World Wide Web (i.e. internet) that contains your website's pages and that can be accessed by anyone on the internet. You upload your files to your web host's server and they in turn make them available to internet users. (See the diagram below) This is the way you establish your home sweet home on the World Wide Web.
(This is a simplified diagram of how a website connects to the World Wide Web)
The Function of a WebsiteYour website is a personally administered online communications connection to the rest of the world. It is here that you will sell a product, pass on information, express an opinion and/or tell your audience who you are. Therefore knowing who your website visitors are is imperative if you want to provide them this information in a way that they can appreciate.A website 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 and you must take this into account when you design a website. The Primary Function of a Website is to Provide InformationIf someone would asked you what is the single most important thing on a website, I hope that you would say that it is information because that is the top priority of search engines and web searchers. When your website is visited it is for the sole purpose of gaining some type of information or data. Thus, always remember that your visitor is looking for something special and it is up to you to provide it!To do this you will be tweaking and modifying the design and content all the time to suit your visitor's intrests. There will be new graphics to add, that new piece of code you just found and extra pages to put online. But, that is part of the fun of being your own webmaster. |
Know your Target Audience and what they are SeekingBut, will anyone take your website seriously? Will the search engines find and list your site? What type of visitor will you attract? If you want to find out the answers to these questions and build a serious website it is important that you know how to analyze your audience and to design your website with these visitors in mind. You must define your target audience!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. To do this effectively you have to put yourself in your visitors shoes.
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