WEBSITE PAGE DESIGN PROJECT INITIATION
In this stage you are preparing the information necessary to develop a great plan for your website design. This information will help guide the project planning and help minimize the time needed to develop that plan.
Here are a few questions you will have to answer in order to have a great start to your website page design.
do you have your specific keywords that you'd like to target for the web page?
Keywords are the foundation to how you’re going to build your SEO driven web page. This is how you can be found for creating great content for your webpage on Google or other search platforms. Without this foundation, you’ll have no idea on how to structure the webpage.
When working on a website page, you also need to be specific with your keywords to the webpage. This way search engines know what you are specifically talking about and can rank the webpage for those specific keywords. There are complete websites with hundreds of pages around a specific keyword. You don’t have to do that but this is done to receive the best website recognition and authority.
Here's a video from Moz to help you understand keyword research:
Check out Moz’ page on their take on keywords for more information.
ABOUT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Your webpage’s target audience can be boiled down to your ideal client (buying persona). If you know your ideal client, you’ll have a better chance of communicating with them. Here are a few points to understand about your ideal client:
Demographic information
a. Age
b. Gender
c. Occupation
d. Family Structure
e. Education
Psychographic information
a. Goals
b. Values
c. Fears
d. Interests
e. Challenges
Other useful information (preferred social media, typical day, etc.)
a. Social Media preference
b. Typical routine
c. Hobbies
d. Geo Location
ABOUT YOUR COMPETITOR RESEARCH
Chances are that you aren’t the only business that provides your product or service. Get a list of at least 5 different webpages. Research them on SEO tools like SEMRush to get more insights on the webpages they have and create a SWOT analysis for each one. From doing this you can find your competitive advantage and fill a pain point that maybe the other webpages don’t solve well.
ABOUT THE DESIGN ASPECTS
Here you are going to use the business’s branding to add to the page.
- Use the company’s logo
- Use the company’s main keywords.
- Color consistent with the brand.
- Typography consistent with the brand.
WEBSITE PAGE DESIGN PROJECT PLANNING
Now that you have all the information you need you’ll have an easier time planning the website page construction.
THE WEBPAGE ROUGH SKETCH
This is where you first build a rough sketch of how the webpage is going to look like. You can use tools like Figma, or design tools like photoshop, or draw.io to get what you’d like the design to be on paper.
THE WEBPAGE COPY OUTLINE
When designing the webpage content, the copy is how you will be found online and how you will keep the visitor interested in what you are writing about.
Tips on how to start planning your webpage copy:
- Start with rough ideas you’d like to have on the webpage.
- Organize the ideas into an outline so that the page flows. This can be steps visitors can follow from where they are at to their goal.
Example outline
- Start with main points and divide them into sections.
- Then within those sections break them up into secondary sections visitors can skip to so that they can get the information they want quicker.
- If you need to break down the secondary sections even more there can be another section level. (usually you don’t need this)
THE WEBPAGE VISUAL MEDIA CREATION OR CURATION
In this portion you’ll use the outline to find different media that works with your webpage. If there isn’t, consider making original content.
How can you use media to effectively drive your reader to a better understanding of your webpage’s content? If you use media correctly, you’ll have more backlinks and readers will actually stay to read your whole content. The change in media provides a way for their brain not get board with just a wall of text.
The visuals are any photo or video that can be used as a supplement to what you are talking about on the page itself. You can even use audio to read the webpage to the person visiting.
THE WEBPAGE PLATFORM
On what platform are you going to build your webpage? This can be important as each platform will have their benefits and shortcomings.
A service based business can work well with WordPress and a product based business can work well with Shopify. If you’d like to build a landing page funnel, you can use Clickfunnels. These aren’t the only website builders you can build your webpage on but they are a good standard to start your research.
WHAT PLUGINS (OR APPS) WILL YOU NEED?
As there are hundreds of development platforms there are thousands of apps. There are apps for better quality of life, sliders, popups, portfolios, media enhancers, back ups, website optimization, and so much more.
There are a good portion of free apps that you can use to enhance your website and they can be sufficient for what you need. These free plugins include website optimization, website backups and restore, website security, website builders, and more.
The paid apps are to help you enhance your website even further. Some of the free apps have certain features that are unlocked only for premium members. Depending on your needs and wants for the website, these can be an option to reach different goals for the webpage.
THE WEBPAGE DESIGN TIMELINE
What is the timeline of the project? Do you need the webpage project done as soon as possible or can you be patient with the development? Depending on the timeline, you can either work with one person or need more people working on the project to make sure that the timeline is met.
Website design sample timeline:
- Project Initiation day 1-3
- Project Planning day 4-6
- Project Execution day 7-9
- Project Monitor and Control day 10+
WEBSITE PAGE DESIGN PROJECT EXECUTION
Once you have the plan set up, the page is ready to be developed.
WEBPAGE SETUP ON PLATFORM
Depends on the preference of the one making the website, they’ll have to choose a domain and hosting provider. Once that is done, you’ll set up the domain with the platform they choose in the planning phase.
You will design the webpage as you have planned it and add all necessary apps or plugins your webpage needs.
Example website setup:
- Buy a domain on Namecheap
- Use Namecheap hosting services
- Build the website on WordPress
- Design the page with the Elementor a plugin
WEBPAGE COPY DETAILS
Once the structure for the website set up is complete, use the outline you built to start working on the details of each section.
Tips to writing your webpage copy details
- Start with the point in the outline that you know very well and start writing in the details for that point so you can start writing strong.
- Use outside resources to provide proof to your points.
- Take breaks in between writing sessions or create a block of time in your day to write in the information in each section. Do this so that you won’t burn out when writing.
WEBPAGE OPTIMIZATION
When you get to this section, it means that you’ve nearly completed your webpage!
To optimize your webpage, use software that help you understand and fix:
- Webpage speed scores (Google lighthouse and Gtmetrix)
- Webpage copy grammatical & vocabulary corrections (Linguix and Grammarly)
- For more information on how to optimize your webpage check out crazyegg’s blog post on how to optimize your website.
webpage revisions
With understanding what you need to do from the website optimization step, it’s now time to revise each section to make them better! Here is where you fix any problems with design, grammatical or vocabulary corrections, and speed up the webpage for optimal SEO speeds.
Multiple revisions are necessary as they can help boost your rankings and visibility on search engines as these revisions can show professionalism and attention to detail.
Levels of Revision:
WEBPAGE SHARING
Before launching your webpage, check and see who can benefit from your page and where you can find them. This should be done from the target audience research. Then build content to increase the chances of your target audience going to your webpage.
Content you can build for increasing webpage traffic:
1. Video content
A. Short form
i. 15 seconds to 1 minute videos
B. Long form
i. 1 minute to an hour videos
2. Instagram graphic carousels
3. Email and text message campaigns to company subscribers
webpage publishing
Looks like you’re ready to launch your webpage! CONGRATULATIONS!!
When you’re ready to publish, most of the time all you have to do is push publish button and your webpage is live. If you have already created content around the page, post the content to all channels to hit the ground running with the webpage.
WEBSITE PAGE DESIGN PROJECT MONITOR AND CONTROL
WEBPAGE MONITORING
Your job isn’t done at publishing. It’s good practice to monitor the page with analytics software. There are different ways you can monitor your webpage but one of the most common is to use Google Analytics.
With Google Analytics you can check the traffic you are accumulating for the webpage and see what needs to be fixed. You can also see where the traffic is coming from and build more content for the winning channel.
WEBPAGE TWEAKING
If you know that there is more to be said about the subject, you can always come back to the webpage and update it. If you do this, search engines will see that this page is continually being updated.
Updates to the page will mean more trust as information continues to change as time moves forward.
WEBPAGE BACKLINKING STRATEGY
Webpage backlinking takes research and a whole lot of time. You can pay professionals to develop backlinks or you can do them yourself.
A way you can start creating backlinks is to find different guest posting websites and write for them. Google these search terms and include the main topic of the webpage:
- (Industry or area)
- (“guest post” or “write for us”)
Note: use the quotes
Write articles for these websites and have a backlink to the webpage you want it to go back to.
ENDING REMARKS
If you need a webpage developed, why not have a professional develop the page for you?
If you need help:
- Developing a webpage
- Optimizing your webpage for better traffic
- Keyword Research for blogs or webpages
- Creating a backlinking strategy
- Developing a webpage sharing strategy
- Planning your website copy
- Or anything else regarding website design and development
Please contact us to get you started on the right path!