5 Things To Consider When Planning Your Website

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Planning a new website for your business or creative project can be extremely exciting. Good web design can propel your work to the top of the pile. Offering visitors a great user experience can solidify your brand identity and make sure that people understand the aesthetic message that you have carefully curated. Web design is a rather nuanced and complex field, but there are some simple things to consider which don’t necessarily require technical knowledge to understand. Here are five things you’ll need to consider when planning your website.

SEO

You should always plan for maximum search engine compatibility when designing or commissioning a website. A huge amount of traffic is routed through search engines like Google every day, and being ranked well by search engines can quite literally change the fortunes of your business. Search Engine Optimization should drive many of the elements on your website: from the way in which you use keywords to the kind of metadata you include with your images. There are plenty of agencies that can help you design your website with search engine algorithms in mind.  

Maintenance

Consistent website maintenance is absolutely essential. Most people don’t ever consider a website maintenance package or even maintain their website, causing issues in the future. Poor website maintenance can lead to data silos, order backlogs, dead links, and dreadful mobile compatibility. If website maintenance feels confusing or distracts you from tasks you would rather give time to, there are plenty of agencies that offer maintenance packages.

Growth Driven Design

If you are serious about keeping your website up-to-date as trends change, you should consider taking a Growth Driven Design approach. Traditionally, websites are planned by identifying needs, finding solutions, and then developing around those solutions. Unfortunately, by the time all of this is completed, the needs and appropriate solutions have almost always shifted. 

Growth Driven Design is a way of keeping up and staying relevant. Initially, only the very bare bones of a website are designed and released. As new opportunities arise, changes can quickly be made, and plugins added. Websites created using Growth Driven Design develop organically in step with the market and aesthetic trends. 

Content Management

Content Management Systems are the platforms that form the underlying structure of your website. The most popular content management system – WordPress – is popular with a wide range of users because of how adaptable it is using themes and plugins. WordPress isn’t suitable for every website, though. Look for reviews and recommendations from people who are experienced in owning the kind of website you are trying to build. 

Navigability 

No matter how pretty your website is, people won’t want to visit it more than once if it is impossible to navigate. Good website design is always based on efficiency and ease of navigation. If, for instance, you are the owner or designer of an e-commerce website, you’ll want as few steps between the product pages and the checkout page as possible. Remember, people can always choose to go somewhere else if your website is a labyrinth and hard to understand.