| The
design of your Internet site is your presentation to your potential
customers, clients, members, or visitors. It is how you send your
message to the Internet. The same care you would use in designing your
literature, brochures, business card, and or presentations should be
used in the design of your site. In many cases this is the only contact
web users will have with you. A professional, well designed site
reflects a professional and well run organization or business. But there
are some cautions here. People on the internet, for the most part,
are looking for information or a specific product, not a technology
show. Your site should look professional, clean and neat. It should get
your point or information across without visitors having to wait for
long load times, or go through hoops to get your message. Spelling
errors, load errors, and long wait times can turn visitors away. Plan
your site as you would any major and important project. Steps you should
consider include:
Outline your site.
Decide what you want your site to convey to visitors. What should the
content of your site be, and what do you want to accomplish.
- Visualize your web
site
- Define the information
you need to present
- Decide how much
information to include on a page
- Determine how
information on one page links to another page
The best way to plan your web site is to
create a hierarchical or organizational chart, which functions as a
basic outline of your site. At the top of this chart is your main page,
then links from that page to other pages on your site. Individual pages
can be named with the subject that page presents. As your planning, you
may find it is better to separate one topic into several pages as we
have done with this section, or you may combine two or more subjects on
one page.
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