Development and design of the site: the main stages

The design of the site begins with the meeting of the customer with the performer. It discusses the details of the future project and draws up a technical task.

Stages of site design

The development process is divided into the following stages:

1. Determining the type of the future site.
2. Statement and analysis of project tasks.
3. Definition of the target audience.
4. Preparation of the layout and design development.
5. Approval and layout of the layout.
6. Programming and transfer of a site on a hosting.
7. Filling the resource with content.
8. Testing.
9. Delivery of the project.

Types of sites

It is important to correctly determine the purpose for which the site is created. First you need to select the type of project. Sites can be conditionally divided into several categories based on a set of functions and goals for which they are created. Depending on the purpose, the resources can be commercial and non-commercial.

Commercial sites are created to sell goods and services, as well as to promote the company.

This type includes:

• Landing sites, business cards, where there is only information about the company;
• Internet shops where you can buy goods or order services;
• Promotional websites created to promote products;
• Product catalogs;
• Corporate sites ;
• Paid services.

Non-commercial sites do not set a goal to sell a product or service. They may be:

• Information;
• News;
• Entertaining.

On the availability of sites are divided into two categories:

• Local - are open only to a certain circle of persons;
• Public - for all comers.

Goals and objectives of the project

The customer selects the desired type of site and describes in as much detail as he needs this project, what features he should have and what tasks to perform. A "brief" is created - a special document with the wishes of the client, thanks to which you can more accurately determine the cost of the site. It highlights the following issues:

1. What are the deadlines for the project?
2. Does the customer have another site, what are his shortcomings?
3. If the project is commercial, do the customers have competitors?
4. What is the difference between his proposal?
5. What languages should the resource be in?
6. Can the customer give examples of sites that he likes?
7. What are the requirements for the logo, color solution?

The list can be supplemented. When drafting the terms of reference and the brief, you need to discuss as many questions as possible. This will help to more accurately determine the cost of the project and quickly coordinate it with the customer. The difference between a brief and a technical task is in a more free form of its presentation. It is a list of the wishes of the customer, rather than clear requirements for the characteristics of the project.

Site Audience

Having defined the goals and tasks that the website should solve, it is worthwhile to think about the audience of the resource. People can visit sites with different purposes:

• Get information (news sites, thematic resources, online stores with reviews about the product);
• Share information (personal blogs, visiting websites);
• Exchange information (sotsseti, forums).

The conversion of the site is the ratio of the number of users who visited the site and performed certain targeted actions on it (registered, went through an advertising link or bought something) to the total number of visitors, expressed as a percentage. Designing a website should be geared towards maximum conversion. There are many methodologies that are used to increase this value. But what to spend on additional improvements after the delivery of the project, it is better to immediately design the site so that it meets the needs of not only the customer, but also future users.

Designing a website should start with answering the following questions:

1) How to attract visitors?

2) Where will they come from?

3) What should I bring to the visitor?

It often happens that the customer forgets to answer the last question, as a result of which the site traffic is significantly lower than expected. On a commercial project, new products will be attracted by the product itself and its advertising, portals with information should be filled with quality content, and news resources - constantly updated. The site should not only attract new visitors, but also stimulate to address it again and again.

Designing a website design

At the next stage, the web designer starts working. Registration is an important tool for increasing the effectiveness and promotion of the project. A template is created with the site skeleton. The designer develops it, taking into account the wishes of the customer on the graphic elements, color palette and user interface.

Everything begins with a sketch - a draft of the layout that the customer must approve. It looks quite schematic and gives an approximate idea of how the final result will look. Often the initial version is updated several times until all the customer's wishes are taken into account. After coordinating the basic design, the specialist begins work on individual elements of the design, including the interface.

Interface development

A concise user interface is an important component of the future success of the project. It should be understandable to any user and attractive. Navigation on the site should reveal a set of its functions and help you find any content, otherwise you will have to redo the entire design. Designing a site without a clear internal organization and thoughtful structure is doomed to failure. Users should enjoy visiting the project, rather than experiencing negative emotions due to the fact that they can not correctly enter their data into the registration form or find the right button. The time spent on the search also matters.

Approval and layout of the layout

If everything is done correctly, then the customer accepts the sketch, and the design and development of the site go to a new level - the maker takes the case. He translates the layout into a specific programming language. The website domain and its CMS (Content Management System) - the so-called engine, the management system, by means of which the site is filled with graphic data and content, is discussed in advance.

After that, the project is transferred to the selected hosting. It is important that it is stable, because no design and content will save the site if the resource is permanently unavailable to the user. Reliable hosting - one of the key components of the success of the project, which can not be saved. After programming and transfer of the layout begins the next stage of the project - filling in with the content.

Filling with content

Designing and design of websites should be aimed at ensuring that a person wants to return to the resource, interested in the information received and satisfying his needs in it. After the work on the design is completed, you will need an SEO specialist (optimizer or content manager) and a copywriter-editor. It can be either one person or several. Ideally, it should compose the semantic core of the site, choosing the most popular search queries for a given topic, write unique literate texts and optimize them by typing keywords. Website filling is the main sales tool. Therefore, the information should be relevant, useful and meet the needs of users.

But do not forget about the search robots on which the ranking of the site depends - the sorting of pages in the search engines by the greatest match with the user's request (relevance). The design of the site should include the prescribing of meta tags, the position of the site in the issue depends largely on them. Mandatory meta tags are:

• Title - the description of the site as a result of the search;
• Description (description) - a short description of the page;
• Text headers (h1, h2);
• Keywords (keywords).

Properly composed titles and descriptors help to significantly improve the position of the site in the ranking, the structure is necessary for comfortable perception of the text, and the keywords help the robots find the necessary information at the user's request.

Testing and delivery of the project

When all the work is completed, the design of the site goes to the final stage - testing. If everything went well, the project is handed over to the customer and launched. If not, then refined and checked again. After the site is published, it must be registered in various search engines and catalogs. Further promotion and support of the project, as well as updating and technical support are discussed separately.