What you need when you are planning your site

1.) Outline. Remember those English papers in school? You know the ones – where before you wrote up the paper you had to outline what you were going to have in it? Creating a site is much like that. Creating an outline helps you to know what you want to have in your site. It also allows you to pare down or combine like subjects prior to creation.

2. Content is king. You may have heard this when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). It holds true when it comes to simple development of your site as well. Preparing the information you want to share is essential. Well-written content establishes what you are all about – your company, your product, your service – and enables your future customers to find you.

3. Images. Whether it’s a graphic element or a photograph, knowing what images you want to use for each page is important. With the changes that have occurred in society, images have a even higher importance than ever before. If the image is too big – it will take too long to load. If it is too small, it will be hard for people to tell what it is.  A good rule of thumb is no bigger than 800px wide and 72-96 dpi (dots per inch). This allows your images to load quickly and are clear to see when enlarged from a thumb-nail. Don’t forget the image needs to match your content.

4. Color scheme. Most people don’t give much thought to this until the site is close to being finished, and then decide they don’t like the colors. Or want a specific color. We recommend using a color scheme site to help you choose your colors, such as Adobe Color). This ensures that your colors are what you want.  It gives the developer the “right” hex or rgb colors to use. [If you have colors for your company already, you can use the site to find those colors to simplify the process or you can simply show your web-site developer the colors and let them match them. Remember that the way colors appear from one monitor to another will differ due to settings.]

5. Finally, have you seen a site that has a look and/or layout you like? Check out other sites and make a small list of sites that you find attract you. Usually there is a commonality among the group that your developer will find. Remember that just because you like a site, it might not work with your service/product. If you don’t want to search for sites that appeal to you, then trust your website developer to help you find your “look”.

With these five simple items, it will make (re)developing your site a breeze – well, much smoother sailing, anway! ????