Roadmap to Successful Website Design

The success of a modern business rides highly on its online presence and to strengthen it, a functional and performance-oriented website design has to be worked out. While you may be unaware of the technical aspects of website design, a professional web designer would have the expertise to create a website that attracts traffic and improves the conversion rate.

In order to cement the success of your website design, a strong roadmap has to be built that ensures a failure-proof website. When there is a documented roadmap, the web designer would be able to get a clear vision and a well-founded Internet strategy that are the basis of a result-driven website design.

Discussed below is the roadmap of a successful website design that every web designer can follow:

1) Visualisation- Until and unless you have a vision for your website, you will not be able to come up with a clear plan for website design. As a web designer, you must discuss with your client about their expectations from the website and a rough draft of the design of the site. When you have the visual image in your mind, you will come to know when you go off track. Therefore, the first step in building a website is defining its purpose and visualising it.

2) Identifying the target audience- Once you are aware of the purpose of the website and have a rough visual image of it in your mind, you have to identify the target audience who may be willing to work with your client. A thorough market survey can prove to be helpful in identifying the audience who are looking for the products and services your client offers.

3) Aesthetics of the website- Selecting a theme of the website that reflects the business of your clients should be the next step. The family of colours, fonts, images, animation and all other aspects that enhance the aesthetics of the website have to be worked out.

4) Development- This is the step where actual building of the website is done. All the technical aspects have to be taken care of in this stage. It involves writing valid XHTML/CSS code that complies with the latest web standards, facilitating superior functionality and accessibility.

5) Content- After the outer shell of the site has been prepared, the web designer should upload useful and informative content and images with the help of a professional content writer and a graphic designer. This information makes the site useful for the non-technical people who just want to know more about the offerings on the site.

6) Testing- The success of a website relies heavily on how well you test its different aspects. It is important to test the load speed, cross-browser compatibility, accessibility and all other aspects of the website, before making it live

7) Maintenance- Once the technical and aesthetical aspects are tested and improvised upon, the site goes live. But the job of the web designer doesn’t end here. He must also carry out the maintenance work to ensure that the site performs well even after going live.

Article Source - http://snipsly.com/2012/02/07/roadmap-to-successful-website-design/