Website Design

Website Design, a service provided by Logiweb Internet Services, a website design, development and online marketing company selling a variety of services including e-commerce, hosting facilities and domain names.

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Developing effective website design requires thoughtful planning. Understanding the entire website design process before you begin will save you time and money as the website design project progresses. Although website design range from just a few pages to more complex ones with hundreds or thousands of pages and sophisticated interactive features, the website design development process remains similar.

There are six basic stages to website design: planning, content development, graphic design, programming, marketing, and promotion and maintenance. Depending on your areas of website design expertise, you may need assistance for some or all phases of your website design project. Think like a home builder: first, develop a good blueprint, perhaps with the help of an architect; then hire individual contractors for the various website design tasks, or hire a general website design contractor.

Website design planning

First of all, you must determine who the audience is for your website design. This is critical, because many website design and content decisions depend on this. Is the website design for children or adults? Does your target audience access the Net from work, school or home? How fast is their Internet connection? Do they want to be informed or entertained? Make sure you know the answers to these types of questions from the outset before embarking upon your website design project.

Your website design must be well organized, both for the benefit of your visitors and to make it easier to maintain. Map out your site in storyboard or schematic form, perhaps as a flow chart. Consider using index cards to represent the prospective web pages. You can rearrange them very quickly. It really helps to have some way to visualize the website design structure, whether you're working alone, with colleagues or website design professionals.

Website Design Services

Spend as much time as you can surfing the Web at this stage. Take a close look at website design that you like. Most website design examples credit the website design company and link to its website so you see what else the website design company has done. If you decide to hire outside help, make sure the website design company is experienced with projects of your size and scope.

Bear in mind that website design is a perpetual work-in-progress. Most website design changes fairly often because the website design technology makes electronic publishing rapid and relatively inexpensive. Well planned website design simplifies this process. New content and features can be easily added without having to redesign the site.

Website design content development

The content of website design will most likely be a combination of information that you currently have and information you will have to create. This may be a time when you may want to hire a creative writer, or for businesses, a Web-savvy public relations pro to help you put into writing some of the concepts inherent in your company and its products and services.

One kind of website design content is customer service information. What questions do people ask most often? If you don't have a list of frequently asked questions and answers, sit down alone, or with your staff, and write one. Then post this information on your website. The more your customers can get answers from your website design, the less time someone has to spend answering those same questions on the phone or in writing.

A website design content manager or website design project manager should be charged with the task of keeping track of the text, graphics, and programming necessary to create the website design content and get it online. This kind of help can be hired on a temporary basis if you don't have the expertise in-house. This may also be a service that a "one-stop" website design company can provide.

Graphic Design

No matter how well-organized and interesting your content, graphics set the tone. You can create a good impression with some aesthetic website design on the home page. Repeat a few design elements throughout the website design to create a sense of continuity. This is just one of many common sense guidelines to follow in creating appealing pages. A good website designer can be of enormous help.

The most important thing to keep in mind in choosing a website design company is to work with website design professionals who understand the unique requirements of the Web. The technical limitations (and opportunities) of web pages are foreign to most graphic designers trained in other media. File size requirements, colour limitations, and screen resolutions are much different from those in print. Even if you have in-house website design, you may want to hire a website design professional to bring your people up to speed on the demands of online design.

Website design programming and technical help

Once you have planned your website design and created the content and graphics, you will need to convert your information into a Web-readable form. You can do this by converting text documents to HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and converting the graphics into GIF or JPEG format. Learning the basics of website design is fairly easy. If you have only a few pages to create and some time on your hands, you can probably do it yourself. If you need help, you can hire a website design HTML coder for about US $25 to US $75 per hour. Website design software that convert documents to HTML (HTML editors) can be of great help.

Once you begin working with forms, CGI scripts, image maps, or online transactions, you probably will need the services of a website design programmer. Website design programmers can cost US $45 to US $200 per hour, depending on your needs, geographic location and the website design programmer's skills. Many website design companies offer programming as part of their services. You can also locate qualified website design programmers by doing an online search. Make sure you see some working examples of previous projects, before you hire anyone.

When all of your material is ready and you've got a website design programmer ready to roll, you will need a place to host your site. If you are running an in-house web server, your system website design administrator will have to learn the necessary skills (perhaps with the help of a website design consultant). Most individuals host their sites with their Internet service provider (if it provides this service) or with a website design company.

Website design marketing and promotion

Creating brilliant website design is fruitless if no one knows about it. With millions of sites, capturing attention can be a challenge. Some website design companies offer marketing and promotion as part of their package. Visit The Web Developer's Journal for ideas on marketing your site.

Website design maintenance

Maintenance on a large site can be a full-time job, so build the costs of continuing maintenance into your website design budget. If you're working with a website design company who is helping with aspects of your website design project, the company may offer a maintenance agreement as part of the website design contract. Ask about this at the beginning of the project. Working with the same website design company throughout will ensure consistency; a new person or company won't have the same working knowledge of your site.