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The Six Stages
Site definition and planning
When making a website, you should generally follow the six stages listed below:
Well will take you through the process step by step below.
Site definition and planningLike how is said in before you begin, definition of the site includes things such as goals, purpose, audience, budget, design team, management, etc. It is the basic planning of your website. You will need to think about every aspect of your website and plan out exactly what you want to do with it and maybe what you want to do on a day to day basis to finish the website. You will need to consider many factors and this will probably the most important and baSic part of your site. It is very crucial to the creation of your website. Below lists some of the things other than the goals, etc. that you should consider when in this stage.Production : How and who do you want to create your site. Are you going to hire a company or put together a team to work on it. How are you going to produce your site is what this part is about. You will need to think about the people who are going to be involved in the creation and management of your website. You will also need to know that there will probably be more people making the site than managing it because it is always harder to start from scratch than to add some additions. Technology : This is the part where you will need to consider all technical aspects of your site. You will need to think about your audience and what kind of internet connections and computer resolutions, operating systems, etc. they are using and will you support that. You will think about what kind of codes you would want to use, do you want to use PHP, HTML, Java, Javascript etc. You will need to think about bandwidth and disk space and how will the users contact you, etc. and visuals. Hosting : Before creating a website, you obviously will need to find the right hosting provider. It is after that that you will be able to start making and uploading your website. You will need to buy a domain name, what name should you have, what's availiable, etc. There are so many factors to consider. You will also need to consider the bandwidth and space require and the type of supports that the web-server has. Also with scripting, what kind of codes/scripts will you want to use and and does the host/server support it. Budgeting : Do you have a specific budget/amount of money that's limited to your website? If so, how do you want to divide it? How much do you want to spend on each aspect of your website. For example, if you are hiring someone to make your site, something that you want to think about is their salary and how long do you need them because you would have to pay them for the length of period that they are hired. Always remember to work within your budget and make sure your estimated spending is less than your actual budget because if it goes over in the end, you will still have some money to pay and not go in dept. Maintanence : After creating your site, you will need to maintain it. Do you need someone to maintain it or are you going to do it yourself. If you need someone else to do it, then you need to think about how much money do you have in maintaining your site. Again, you will have to look at your budget and work with it. If you have a huge site, then you might need a whole team of experts and then you would need a manager who will manage this team and money again is needed. So when you are planning your site, plan before, in between, and after the creation of your site so you will always be on top of it and you will know what you are doing. Keep focused on your goals and orgainize your ideas and points around these goals.
Site structureThis stage is the next stage to the planning. It consists of organization and content. Organization includes the structure of your site, navigations, page design sketches, test pages, etc. The content is the information that you want to put on the page. The organization is based on the content usually. So you would have to take a look at all the information you have and group them so that you would know what to use for links. Or if you have the links you want set up then just catagorize the information into the links. You should also make site maps, table of contents, etc. so you would know what information is on your site and what content you need. Also, sketch out a few designs and then later choose the best and most suitable one. There are also many things that you need to consider when making the design of the site like compadibility, etc. Then make test pages and see how the site would work.So by the end of this step you should have determined atleast the following:
Site designHere you will need to adjust the look and feel of your website. You will need to come up with a suitable design and a template to work with. Also, all the site's content will need to be edited and reviewed. The basic layout of the site need to be established, and all graphics which includes banners, logos, backgrounds, etc. all need to finished and created. Additional images and photos also need to be found and incoperated into the design. Anything that's related to the design (template, content, etc.) should be finished here so you are able to move on to the actual creation and making of the site. Please keep in mind that the design of your site should work in the browsers and computers of your viewer. So you will need to consider the screen solutions, browser compadibility, and others things such as size of files and images to make sure the site will show up properly through out.In this stage, a minimum of the following should be accomplished:
Site constructionThis is the actual stage where you put everything together and finish your website. This might be the more fun stage where you get to see the finished product. So you would have everything organized by this stage and all you have to do is place the content in the pages with the template and see the product. You may have to do some editing to the content or navigation and pages to create a better effect if needed. Also, when coding the pages, make sure you write it so it is readable so it can be maintained later on and not all scrunched up together and unbarable. After finishing all the pages, you will need to test your site. Make sure to have people who are not part of the design team to view the site to make sure that all aspects are covered and different people will find different bugs. The testing of the site is very important and before you can market your site, you will need to test it to make sure it will run smoothly and that it will not have any major bugs. Remember to take a look at the site yourself and proofread it and try to find bugs if you can. It is important that the design suites the content and what you are trying to convey so be very percise and careful in this stage. Once after this stage the website will be there for everyone to see and view and if there are major mistakes, there will be critics and some people may not come back again because they could not view the website properly due to the amount of bugs, etc.Remember that every page should be tested and viewed, if you have a large site, then get more people to view it and even your friends and family members can help you if they have access to a computer. It is crucial that the site is as bug free as you can get it.
Site marketingAfter your site has been finished and tested and released online, it is time to let the world know that you are out there. If you have anything such as business cards or posters, or even when you are doing any kind of advertising or promotions, always include your website on it. It is easy for everyone to see and if they need information, they will remember to go to the site instead of calling in or going to your company or you. This part is not all that easy, yet not all that hard, but it is the only way to get people to visit your site and let it grow. You can always start small and work in the local region and post flyers and poster in and around your local region. Also, try and get listed in directories, and search engines. But it's not easy getting to the top of the search engine, but in your site, remember to include meta tags so search engines will pick it up. You will have to advertise your website and let everyone know it's there inorder for it to gain success. You could try sponsoring certain things, paying to have your site advertised, press release, newsletters, etc. to get people to notice that you are out there. You need to let people know that you have a site or else no one will know and no one will visit your website. If you tell a friend and they tell and friend and that friend tells a friend and so on, then that friends becomes many friends and many people will know your website and will visit your site. If they find it informative and interesting, they will tell even more people and they will keep on coming back. Even the best sites without the right marketing will be nothing. And the worst sites with the right kind of marketing can be something. The important thing in marketing is getting people to come on your site and everything, done correctly previous to this stage will make them stay.
Tracking, evaluation, and maintenanceUsually, all web server/hosts provide you with logs/stats of your website. In these logs, you can find out valuable information like how many people visited your website this month or day or week at what time and where they are from and things such as the most popular pages on your site and how did the visitors get here and how many visitors bookmarked your page. These are information that will help you in improving your site and checking if your site is successful or not. If there are more people, new and old, then that means your site it successful. If the there are constantly new viewers to your site and the old viewers stay, then your site will grow and you will receive more views per month and day. You can track down information and use this information to see what you need to focus and improve on, what you did well, and what you didn't do well. You will need to learn to use this information to your advantage inorder to succeed and grow even more.Other than tracking down your visitors and using that information to evaluate and imporve your website, you will also need to maintain it. A finished website will go stale and rot if it is not taken care of. You need to keep on updating your site and make sure that it is fresh and new so people will keep on coming back because there's new information. What else is that if you do not update your site, then you will loose all your viewers because once they have seen everything, then there's nothing more to see and nothing more to come back for. Afterall, no one likes out dated stuff. You will need to maintain and update your website, if you don't want to do it yourself, then you should hire someone who will help you do it. |