How to Create a Perfect Website

Anyone in the web design industry will always be looking for the perfect formula(e) for every website they build. The real solution to this problem? Well, it's basically dynamic; every single website should be built according to the client's needs. From a design point of view, a website should incorporate everything about the company for whom the website is being built for. Colour schemes, layouts and graphics are all things that need to be considered within the initial design process. There is much more to it, so here are Designtec's basic steps to ensuring a perfect website that functions well and is aesthetically excellent every time:

Step 1: Context

What business sector is the website for? Obviously, certain businesses will be more extravagantly designed websites than others. A website for a graphic designer or television studio is always going to be more superfluous in its design when compared to that of a plumber or electrician. Most potential clients and customers process the full worth of business within 8 seconds. Therefore, the homepage must be tailored to the specific industry, client base and location of business in order for the website to reach its full potential. Generally, 80% of people will lose interest in a website if it does not answer their key questions within less than 2 sentences of text or if there is an absence of an extremely well laid out button map.

What do we do to ensure that the site visitors will stay on site? We take in to account what any potential customer will be looking for. A home page should never waste anybody's time. We show clear information relevant to broad search terms straight away to ensure that interest is grabbed from the initial page view. From there, we display sub-pages very clearly to break down any company's service to its key points.

Step 2: Navigation

Following on from context, navigation is extremely important. Not only for the user, ease of navigation is essential for optimal search engine rankings. If your website cannot be easily crawled by a site crawler, then you might as well have not bothered with building your website. We deal with this extremely important issue by automatically creating an XML sitemap dynamically, based on any pages of the website that our clients (or ourselves) might add. From a user's perspective, having a simple to navigate menu is essential. We always make sure that any menu is prominently placed for the perfect ease of navigation.

Step 3: Layout

Layout is extremely important from a user's perspective. The only reason that it is step 3 is because steps 1 and 2 take priority in search engine rankings. It's now time to focus on the personal aspect of web design. Having a lot of text for your website is great. Google loves content, and so do potential customers. However, the difference here is that Google doesn't care about your website's layout. Google can't read styles and fancy images. This styling is all to grab the user's attention. Taking both context and Navigation rules in to account, we build our layouts by putting ourselves in to a potential customer's shoes.

Let's look at an example. Website Alpha is a website for a sole trader who deals in shoes. Our trader's USP is that they get some very obscure brands that are very sought after in the collector's market. To ensure that the maximum potential of our example's home page is met, we would focus on the unique aspects and exclusivity of the trade and make this the most prominent part of the website. When this information is properly displayed, our example website will have successfully driven this message 3 or 4 times before any scrolling on the website occurs.

How to tie it all together?

It's easy when you know how. Putting everything together is the result of time and research. You can't just build a website for a company within an industry that you have never heard of, and anyone who claims they can is lying. We research every company and industry that we build a website for. Once you have a grasp on both the client's competition and the potential of the industry, you can build an outstanding website that will drive traffic faster than any known method of marketing can guarantee.