Building a Great Web Site - Part 2 of 4 - Layout and Design (3/24/2007)

In the first article about building a great web site, I talked a bit about Planning, Goals, Site Organization. In this article I'll talk about how to make your site attractive and usable by the visitors to your site.

When you've made the choice to get a web site there are really only three options for going about doing it. You can build it yourself, Ask the neighbor kid or Hire a professional. I'll give you an idea of how each works.

Design a web site yourself

If building a web site sounds like something you'd like to pursue, take note. There are several tools available to help build web sites; FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc. However, these tools take time to learn. You won't just crack open the box and start building a web site right away. Learning them can take a significant amount of time.

If you are serious about building your own web site, my suggestion is to take a class on web site design. Most colleges and continuing education centers offer night classes on building a web site. Building a web site takes several skills and when choosing a class be sure to ask for a syllabus beforehand. Make sure the class includes instruction on HTML, scanning photos, editing photo's, and transferring files across the Internet. These are the base skills needed to build a web site.

Neighbor, Friend or Family Computer Nerd

So your 13 year old nephew is good with computers? He can probably build it for next to nothing too. A great web site though takes serious time and effort to make it so. If you're going to use outside help to build your web site, check their references, and ask for a list of web sites they've built. Don't be someone's first web site project.

Hired Gun

Having a professional web site built can cost between $200 and $1500 up front depending on the features you ask for. Same as above, check references and checkout websites they've already built. Don't call just one, shop around.

When you first talk with a professional web site designer, make sure you've already planned out as much of your web site as you can. The more specifics about your vision of the perfect web site, the more accurate their quote will be. Most web designers charge by the hour, and will estimate the number of hours it will cost to build your web site.

With that aside, let's look at what needs to be done, regardless of who builds it.

Graphical Elements

Most web site designers are also part graphic designer, but when it comes down to it, this is your web site not theirs. As artists, you should think long and hard about what is most representative of you in your artwork. This should be reflected in the graphical elements which are made up of the borders, rulers, fonts, color scheme's, and backgrounds on the web site. Be creative, it's what you do best!

If you're medium is paper, canvas or photography then this is fairly easy as you can create your web site by hand and scan it into the computer. You'll probably need to touch it up a bit once it's digitized, but then it can be sliced into pieces and arranged on the web site in many ways.

Navigational Elements

The navigational elements are the links, buttons, menu's and dropdowns that allow you to move from page to page on a web site. As above, put a spark of you in the navigation of your web site. Be unique so that visitors will remember it.

Make sure all the navigation is easy to identify, and that it is the same across your whole web site. Nothing is more frustrating than hunting for a link on a web site. Keep in mind that the people on your web site prefer web sites that are easy to use over web sites that are dazzlingly beautiful. Their time is valuable, and they'd rather not waste it trying to figure out how to navigate your web site.

Beta Testing

The last piece of advice I have for building your web site, is testing. Enlist the help of at least three friends to take a look at your web site before you publish it. In the web business we call this beta testing or drafting. Before you create the finalized version, have them take a look at it, and try to navigate around the new site, ask for their comments.

I realize this is a very summarized view of building a web site. I could spend days talking about it, and still leave several things out. I can only hope that it gives you enough ideas and structure to visualize your own web site. In the next section, I'll talk about how to market your web site.

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