Design a Successful Website in 6 Easy Steps

1. (Optional but strongly suggested): Do some keyword research! It is important to know which keywords are most pertinent to your business before designing your website- you will be much more prepared for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) than if you don't.. All you need is to do a little brainstorming with your colleagues, friends and family and list all the keywords that people might use to search for your goods or services. Then, it's important to check the popularity of the keywords you chose to make sure they are being used by potential customers. You can use the Google Keywords tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal ) to check keyword popularity. Knowing your keywords will help you find the right name and content for your site while you are building it.



2. Choose a layout for your site: In order to successfully design your website, you need to first decide how users will navigate and which features you will include on your website. You will either be using a template or a web designer for your layout, so this step should help you realize which option is right for you. First, you need to visualize your website as a set of different components organized in a specific way that is designed to represent your company. These components each have different functions: Navigation (the area containing links to other pages on your site), Decisional (Register, Login, Subscribe, Add To Cart, Review, Contact, ect), Merchandising (product slide shows, product listing, featured products), Content (articles, product descriptions, specifications) or Aesthetic (images, text, video.) Depending on the importance and weight you want to give each component, you will want to position them differently on your site. While some regions of your layout will stay the same for all pages on your site (such as the header and footer), other regions, such as the navigation menu or the content area, will have a different layout depending on the kind of content they feature. Usually, content-oriented websites have 4-5 different types of pages ( Home page, Category Listing, Content Listing, Content Page, My account) while e-commerce websites may have many more depending on your needs(Product Page, Product Listing, Checkout, Featured Products, Specials, other navigation and merchandising pages). When assessing your layout needs, it's always good to look at competitors and see what they're doing and how you can outsmart them. To help you perform this step, we've created a few layout samples you can use to get started: sample.pdf. Be careful! This is not the creative part of the process, so don't be too original in your layout, as internet users are now very used to some "standards": navigation on top and/or left sides, login/account button on top of the page, search box in header or top left. Now that you know what you want and how you want to implement it, let's add some colors and images in the next step.



3. Should I use a template or hire a designer? How should my site look? This is the artistic part of the process and far from the easiest- you are creating the image that your visitors/customers will associate with your name and business. Doing a design from A to Z is not an easy task; you need to make decisions about every aesthetic element , including font type, size, colors, images, and backgrounds,to create the desired look and feel. Depending on your budget, you can go the faster and cheaper route by using/buying a template that best matches the layout and atmosphere you defined in the previous step.While templates are typically high quality and affordable, they have their own limitations in terms of personalization and it's often hard to achieve satisfactory results if you already have a precise idea of the ideal look and feel for your site. If existing templates do not suit you, you can also contract a web designer to personalize a template or to start a new design based on your desired layout. While this solution will cost more than a template, it will make your site feel unique and authentic to visitors. It depends entirely on your budget, but if you can afford it, it's often worth using a designer, as this is useful for branding and generates long-term returns. When hiring a designer, always check their portfolio to make sure you like his or her style and use that to decide if they would be a good fit for your project.



4. Write content and enter your product catalog: You can start this step while you're still working on the design, as this is often neglected until the site is designed and it bottlenecks the whole process. "Write Content" means creating all of the text you're going to publish on your site. In the case of an e-commerce site, you may have to create your shipping policy, your return policy, your privacy policy and other content related to your industry, products, or business practices. Then, you need to create your product catalog or import one if you already created an excel file containing your products. You also need product descriptions and pictures. While it's tempting to use stock photo images and manufacturer product description, it's always good to use your own pictures and descriptions as this unique content will help you rank higher in search engines.



5. Create your store: Once your products are created and your design is chosen, you can start to build the store. If you hired a designer to do your design, it's recommended that you make sure he will take care of integrating his design into the e-commerce platform you've chosen to avoid any surprises in the process. If you decided to use a template, make sure the template is compatible with the platform you'll use-if it is, then you should be set up in minutes. Also, you need to customize the platform; most of the time, this means you will need to personalize automated emails (order confirmation, new customer registration, etc), define your shipping method and prices, set up your payment method and other options related to merchandising, promotions, policy and more. E-commerce platforms vary quite a bit in user-friendliness and amount of features, so it's important to pick one that you have total control over. .The Vendilis ecommerce platform has been designed to provide the most powerful tools on the market in the simplest way possible.



6. Test your site: Testing your site is one of the most important steps in the process of building your business. Testing typically involves making sure the navigation works so that people can easily find what they're looking for, and testing all website's functionalities such as seearch, shopping cart, registration, check out, and customer account management. Be sure to test everything using EVERY major browser (IE, FireFox, Chrome,Safari) and also test your site on different screen resolutions (phone, ipad, laptop, desktop) and different operating systems(Windows, MacOs, and Linux). While testing all these different combinations is time consuming and may require lots of hardware and software, you can use some online services (like:…) that will emulate all of those different configurations, so you can test everything from a single PC. Finally it's always good to have others (colleagues, friends, family) test and give you their feedback.Ask them some questions: how easily were they able to navigate the site? Did they have difficulties searching? What actions did they complete? What is their overall satisfaction? If you have a little extra budget, you can also hire some third parties to survey people and receive some feedback about your site (ie: …)

All done! Your site is now ready to promote and sell your product or service. Don't be too much of a perfectionist before you launch- it will undergo many changes after you put the site online. Your website should be constantly evolving, so don't spend too much time trying to perfect it- simply get it online and then shape it based on traffic and feedback.