Tips for Planning a Website

Step One: Determine your audience's needs

Before you even begin designing a website, you need to determine your visitors' needs (aside from your own). Their immediate needs probably involve answering questions like:

• Can I trust this person/company?
• Are they any good at what they do?
• Will they get the job done?

To meet these needs, you could provide a portfolio, client testimonials etc. Talk to friends and customers to help determine what other information you should offer on your site.

Step Two: Plan the flow of your information

Determine what information is the most important to your visitors, and decide the order in which that information should be displayed. For some examples, take a look at other professionally designed websites that provide similar information and see how they do it. Provide your designer with these examples so he can get a feel for what you like and dislike.

Step Three: Usability Review

Now that you have your site plan worked out, you need to show it to a small test audience to make sure your plan makes sense. All you have to do is ask them three simple questions:

• What's the point of this website?
• If you were on this homepage, where you would click? And where after that?
• Is the information you need available in the site?

Taking the time now to make sure you have a good plan can save you a lot of money in site changes later. According to IBM, every $1 you spend on usability now, can return $10 to $100 later.

Step Four: Let ACI Design Your Site

Once you know the goal of your website and have gathered all the information you would like to share with your audience, call us at 970.470.3360 and we will be happy to help you bring your vision to life!