Pre-Planning of a Website
When starting out on a new website it is critical to do at least some planning and brainstorming before rushing ahead. Here on Housebaked we've put together some key tips that could help you create a better overall site that delivers to its readers/users and earns more revenue - simply by taking a few extra steps.
Inevitably there will always be something you can improve upon during the lifespan of a site due to many factors that include your personal experience in the creation and coding of a site / layout, your experience regarding a topic / product, the way you present information to your readers etc.
Whatever you do, remember building a successful site takes time and patience!
#1 Your First Step is a Decision
You ultimately decide what your site is going to be about and I don't intend on having any influence on your decision. Instead I want to help you with your own decision by explaining the importance of making the right decision - However crazy it may sound, it works!
Every successful website has a goal behind it, you and your website should have one too. Whether it being providing good information, making some revenue, selling a product etc. you should determine what you want your site to do. Most importantly, you must enjoy the topic of your site and make it clear to your readers that you are interested in their best interest. It is incredibly easy for a reader to determine that a site is a hoax or at least by the means and ways of the author's writing, a user can usually quickly determine that the author is just in it for the money.
This is why sticking to a topic that you personally admire is great. Firstly it embodies you with confidence in what you're writing about that will automatically lead to greater quality contentand it also ensures you don't get bored after having launched the site. Really, it doesn't matter which topic you choose in the end, even if you don't have a wealth of knowledge regarding the topic you will, if you like the topic, be encouraged to learn more about it trough input from your readers as well as your own research.
#2 Choosing a Name
Assuming you have a topic already your next step is choosing a name that represents the niche of your website. This is an area where I've personally failed numerous times over the years, because I didn't plan for the future.
For example: Assume your site is about puppy food you might name your site puppyfoods.com. After more than a year into your site you want to start adding more related content to expand your niche and expertese-level by adding dog toys (for those cute puppies to play with). Now you sit with a dilemma because you've already earned many backlinks to your current domain - which does not even give a clear description of what your site is about. Because of this, I recommend you take a couple of minutes and think about what you want your site to ultimately become before choosing a name.
Of course you could always make two seperate websites about those topics or choose a better name such as puppy-products.com or puppygear.com etc.
#3 Your Competition
The web is vast, in most cases anything you start out with will already have some if not a huge amount of competition. It does not mean however that you can't be successful, it just means you'll have to work a little harder. Competition is good!
You can easily determine your competition by searching for keywords and keyphrases of your niche in Google and other major search engines. This way you will determine a few things: Firstly, you will determine which keywords and keyphrases are most relevant to your topic, thus already giving you an advantage of which keywords to use to challenge your competitors and which to use to outmatch them. Besides that, you can now look at a few of your competitors' sites and make some notes.
Now ask yourself "What do my competitors have which I haven't thought about?" and "What can I bring to my site that none of them have?". This can lead to some innovation from your side which will give you another notch above your competition.
Last but not least, you may even take some design notes or layout structure from your competitors' websites and apply some of it to your own.
#4 Initial Design - A Sketch!
After taking the above steps you can safely assume you are ready to start designing your page. In the event that you'd be doing it yourself a sketch to give yourself a glimpse of what you want to achieve can create wonders. The effect of having a design that suits you, the owner of the site is very important as you can't possibly even think of being successful if you don't even like your own design.
Sketching doesn't need to be something perfect, just a rough sketch of the main layout would usually suffice. That way you can arrange different areas of your niche to different sections and review your navigation by brainstorming and putting your ideas to paper before you actually start coding.
#5 The Final Product
After you're happy with your own design (colours, layout etc.) it's best to make sure your website is veiwable on resolutions 800 x 600 and up and on different browsers (Mainly Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari). If this is good, make sure your text is all readable and a decent size.
Before you can go further however also make sure that all your links are reachable (no broken links) and double-check your grammar and spelling before uploading.
#6 What's Next?
If you're happy with your site, it doesn't mean all your users are. There are several forums out there where you can consult the users on a review of your site. These are often experienced web developers and some are just casual web surfers so you will get a good balance of feedback on your site. Make sure you ammend to it if a particular aspect was brought forward more than once. I personally reside by Websitebabble.com which I have found to be the best community-based resource on web development.
Of course you can't rely on one source so I encourage you to go and learn some more on the topic of web development from some of the top sites which I still visit today.