It's all in the planning - Part 1

As David Dorn points out, it's a good idea to plan your new website properly before you go diving head-long into your favourite authoring package

So, you want to be a Web Master, eh? Good for you! Running a successful Web site can be a fulfilling activity, and it's my job to take you step by step through the route to creating a gorgeous, fast, accessible and 'sticky' site - one that you can be proud of, and which will keep your visitors coming back for more.

Believe it or not, the most important part of creating a Web site is not locating that all-singing and all-dancing JavaScript doo-dad. Neither is it the design of your logo, or your choice of font. The most important stage (for it is a stage) is the planning stage. Before you can even begin to lay out Web pages, you need to know exactly what you're doing, and how the site is going to work. Yes, there's room for a little tinkering further down the road, but it's at the very start that you should invest time to create a plan that will guide you through the process of site creation.

What's it about?

The first step is obvious, really. You've probably already decided what the subject(s) of your Web site is (are). You need to be sure that you've got that firmly in your mind, especially if you want to tackle more than one topic or subject. Why? Well, if you're going to create a site that covers all things Goth or vampiric, for instance, you're not likely to want to use a bright white background and bright, cheery colours.

In other words, the theme of your site will, to some degree, dictate the colours and style of it. If you're going to cover a number of areas, then you will need to contemplate which, if any, is the 'lead' area - the one that's going to get the most space. That will be the one you design for, and the others will follow suit.

The look of luuurve...

Let's say you've decided to create a Valentine's Day site. You have decided that you want to feature a section on Valentine Poetry, one on Valentine Cards, one about romantic places to visit, and a section about chat-up lines. Do you also want a message board or chatroom? Are they a good idea? How often will you need to update your site? Is it going to be yet another that gets created, uploaded, and left to fester, or are you going to keep it alive and vibrant, and update it regularly?

Once you've sorted out the answers to those questions, the next step is to get hold of a large sheet of paper or an organisational charting program, because you need to lay out the structure of your site.

It all begins with the Home Page. This is the point at which your visitors will enter, and so it is from here that all the links in your site will radiate - like the hub of a wheel, your Home Page is.

From what we've covered above, you know that there will be at least four main links to:

• Poetry
• Cards
• Places
• Chat-ups

You will also probably want to add:

• About
• Links

'About' is straightforward. The section tells your visitors about you, and your site's privacy policy, and anything else not connected with the site's content you might want them to know. The 'Links' section is there to guide your visitors to sites, perhaps related in content to your own, that you like and recommend. It can have other uses too, but we'll cover them later.

So, draw those six headings into your chart as, if you like, mini-home pages for each of the six sections your site will have.

Valentine Limericks. So draw boxes into your chart to represent them. Do the same for the Cards section and the Places and Chat-ups sections, and you will be beginning to build up a map of the folders your site will need in it.

Clicks

Look at each sub-section, and decide whether it's really worth dub-dividing it again. Beware, though that each new sub-level will require an extra index to click through before you get to readable content, so it's worth restricting yourself to, at most, two levels, or layers, to your structure. In this case, to get to the Romantic Poems index, your visitor would need to click just two links from the home page:

Home -> Poetry -> Romantic Poems

And then she's one click away from any one of however many articles you have there. That's it - if every article or page is only three clicks away from your home page, you're winning already. Lord knows, I've been to enough sites that require you to click five, six seven or more links to get to readable content, and they tend not to attract me back, unless the subject matter is really very good. Even then I hesitate. Most people would. Remember the Internet is about instant gratification! Folks want to get to your content as quickly as possible. Statistics tell us that most people won't wait more than ten seconds for something to appear on a page before they're off somewhere else. Which brings us neatly onto the next step, really!

Now that you've created a basic map of your site, it's time to consider the look - the colours, the fonts, images and so forth. Just to whet your appetite for the next instalment, here's what you'll need to consider:

Colours: You need to know that some colours just don't work together - and not in a Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen sort of way, either. Trust me, carmine red on a pink background is a definite no-no, as are dark grey on black and yellow on white. I could give you links to some really shockingly bad sites for colour combinations, but I won't - you will come across them without any help from me!

Fonts: You also need to know that not everybody has all the fonts you have. Some are what we call 'Web-safe' - that is, they're standard fonts with both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. You can more or less guarantee that 99% of surfers have them. While 'Poster Plod Kid's Style' might be your personal favourite (because you made it yourself) your reader won't see it if it's not on their machine. There are ways around this, but they're not 100% guranteed.

So, have a think about the look, the colours and the fonts - go to some high-traffic sites and see what they use. Get some inspiration, and I'll see you here for the next instalment.

Read Part 2 of this series

 

David Dorn