Introduction To Website Planning

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Introduction To Website Planning
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Presentation Outline

• Introduction to Website Design
• Website and Marketing
• Questions and Answers

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Website Planning

• When you develop a website there a some basic
  questions and steps
• Purpose
• Goals
• Website Theme
• Target Audience
• Web Content
• Web Page Content
• Web Design Style

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Purpose

• The first important step in the website creation
  process, is to determine the purpose of your
  website. To often a website lacks focus and
  visitors are quickly confused and click away. A
  website with a well defined purpose stands out
  and a visitor should instantly recognize it
  without effort
• There are several common purposes for a website
• Provide a service
• Sell a product
• Present information on a topic
• Built to share information
• Inform people about yourself
• Deliver news on a particular subject

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Purpose

• Summary
• Understand the importance of knowing your sites
  purpose
• Be focused- clearly define the principal purpose
  of your site
• Be able to state your sites principal purpose of
  your site in one sentence

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Goals

• The success of any website can only be measured
  through the use of its goals, which need to be
  (SMART).
• Specific
• Realistic
• Attainable
• Time Sensitive
• Measurable
• Every website will have different objectives
• Product brand awareness
• To market detailed product information
• To target international communities
• Provide the latest new product or service
  information to customers
• Market yourself
• To make money from an online business

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Goals

• Summary
• Be sure to know what you want your site to
  accomplish
• Write up the goals for your site
• Think of ways how you can measure the success of
  your sites goals

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Website Theme

• A theme is essentially a simple and accurate
  description of your sites focus
• If visitors cant figure out quickly what your
  site is about, they will not hang around for long
• The relevancy of themes for websites has become
  increasingly important for search engine ranking
  with the adoption of theme based indexing

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Target Audience

• Definition A specified audience or demographic
  group for which an advertising message is
  designed
• Your target audience helps you determine what
  they are looking for when they visit your website
• Once we understand who our target audience is
  that the site was intended for (website purpose),
  we can start planning a site that will appeal to
  this particular audience. In other words, your
  site has to reflect the needs and interests of
  its target audience, providing high-value,
  complementary content that is styled to appeal to
  them

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Target Audience

• The Target audience will be looking for or
  wanting the following
• Avenue for communication- informative
• Method for receiving and distributiong resources
• Tools for marketing

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Web Content

• Simplicity is the main, web design principal for
  websites. Web design is about good content
  design and making life easy for the user to read,
  navigate and interact with your content
• Web users dislike having to scroll down and read
  long pages
• Reading from computer screens is 25 slower than
  paper
• Your web content therefore should have
  approximately 50 of the word count of its paper
  equivalent
• Over 75 of web users can web pages instead of
  reading word-for-word

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Web Content

• We must also consider people connect via the
  Internet
• From anywhere in the world
• With different connection speeds
• With varying types of technology (PCs)
• Using various forms of (browser) programs and
  methods
• Speaking different languages
• With varying degree of online know-how or
  knowledge

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Web Page Content

• Writing content for a web page involves many
  considerations
• Convey the purpose of the page in a descriptive
  title. Dont make people guess
• 200 to 500 words per web page
• Use clear and simple language
• Web page should be standalone. A web surfer
  might enter your site through this page
• Support your text with links to other pages

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Web Design Style

• Website style is defined through page layout,
  design and personalization of your sites web
  pages
• Simplicity is king
• It is important that the site follows a common
  structure so all the documents are in a logical
  place
• All documents should share the same style
• Using a template to create all documents will
  ensure each element is used for the same function
  in all documents

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Website Marketing
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Marketing

• Website marketing is about getting to your site,
  then convincing them to take action buy, join,
  subscribe, read more, etc
• To be most effective, your website (as well as
  other) marketing strategy should be a part of
  your overall business marketing plan. By
  aligning online marketing with your offline
  efforts, you can better achieve overall company
  objectives. Additionally, you will present a
  consistent style and message across all points of
  contact with your target audience

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Questions and Answers