Stages of Website Design and Website Promotion
There basically 4 Stages of website design. Below is a simplification of each of these 4 stages.
1 – Style over substance
The first stage is to design a site that the chief executive officer, venture capitalists, and ad agencies like to see. There are all types of “bells and whistles” in this design. An entire site might be a Flash animated site. Or there might be some beautiful JavaScript mouse over effects or drop-down menus in the design. It’s always a pretty design, but the message is clear – style over substance.
2 – Designing for online visibility
The reality of an ineffective web design begins to hit, usually around 3-6 months after the initial launch. A site will typically get rejected by many of the major directories, not be indexed by the major search engines, or not get the traffic or sales that were projected based on the various types of marketing strategies used. Typically, that’s when companies decide that they will try to hire a professional online marketer to promote the site.
Doorway page companies, in some way, shape or form, rear their ugly heads. Unfortunately, many website owners fall for a doorway page company’s pitch because the beautifully designed site couldn’t possibly be the problem with low site traffic. Yahoo might have rejected a site, or the site might have been listed in Yahoo and the company cannot understand why they have no description next to their company name. But in no way would many ad agencies or doorway page companies want to tell potential clients the truth. They simply did not design and write an effective website, because it would mean losing thousands of dollars in business
3 – Designing for your audience
After spending an exorbitant amount of money on pretty website designs and various marketing strategies, website owners generally figure out that they did not design or write an effective website for their target audience. Typically, website owners will bring in a usability expert to analyze potential problems and present various solutions. Bringing in a search engine marketing expert to help with search-engine friendly web designs &templates early in the design phase can save a company thousands of dollars in online marketing costs.
4 – Site redesign
After careful usability and search engine visibility analyses, website owners finally have an effective website. A site that is written, coded and designed for user friendliness and search engine visibility generally gets the most traffic and resulting sales because it was written, programmed, and designed for end users.
In conclusion, web sites should always be designed with your target audience in mind, not your own personal preferences. Colors have great meaning. Professional website designers understand the psychology of color and the use of white space to best project the image your audience wishes to see. For example, try not to use the color red on a financial site. Understanding the products, services, and information your target audience is searching for is paramount to designing and maintaining an effective website. When you launch a site, you might have to make an educated guess as to what your target audience wants. After that, tools such as site statistics software and reporting from website searches tell you exactly what your visitors are looking for. Then website promotion and marketing strategies can be adjusted accordingly. Unless the advanced technology clearly benefits end users, do not use it on your site
Your target audience is who will ultimately determine the success or failure of your website.
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