Analysis

As with any project, it is important to do proper research and set goals before beginning. By setting goals, it will help the website to have a direction and will also help your business to achieve specific accomplishments. The planning and goal setting process could take about 1-2 weeks to complete. It is a very important first step to creating a website that sells. There are a few questions you should ask yourself during this phase:

What do I hope for my website to accomplish?

Who is the audience I would like to target?

What are the main goals of the website?

By setting goals for your website, you will be helping the site to have a clear direction and purpose. This is important to the rest of the steps. When setting your goals, you should think about outlining what you would like the rest of the steps to look like. Step 1 will guide you through the rest of the process smoothly.

DESIGNING THE LAYOUT

The details of the layout are what will give your website character. This is the step where you get to be creative with pictures, videos and what kinds of things the customer will notice when they come to your site. This process can take about 4-12 weeks from start to finish. The timing depends on experience, time spent on the project, and how thorough the developer is. During this step, it is especially important to keep referring back to the target audience you wish to focus on.
Consider colors, logos, and anything that will encourage your audience to interact with the site. By considering how you will create the layout of the website, you are attempting to bring the website to life. It should help the audience to get a feel for your business or product. Please note this step does not yet involve written content. That is the next step. The written content is so important that it needs its own step.

Implementation

Before the website is launched, it is crucial that it is tested out by real users. All the links and content should be tested to see if it works. Not only is it important to test out all the buttons and everything on the site, but it is also important to test out what users think of it. There is user testing that can be completed to make sure the website is giving users what they need to be successful on the test.

Again, there are tools that can be used to determine if anything needs to be changed. Make sure to check all written content, including spelling and grammar. If your website has forms, ensure that they are working correctly as well. These might be important ways the users can get in touch with you or sign up for alerts and messages. Without these working properly, it can be very difficult for the user and also will be difficult for you to have a successful website.

Don’t just check the website once, but check it over multiple times. When you are confident that everything is in working order, you can go ahead and launch your website live. When it comes to launching, you are finally ready and can do this by uploading it to the server. You will need FTP (File Transfer Protocol) for this process. It is also important to make sure everything is running smoothly immediately after launching. Testing and launching may take 2-4 weeks to complete.

TESTING & INTEGRATION

Before the website is launched, it is crucial that it is tested out by real users. All the links and content should be tested to see if it works. Not only is it important to test out all the buttons and everything on the site, but it is also important to test out what users think of it. There is user testing that can be completed to make sure the website is giving users what they need to be successful on the test.

Again, there are tools that can be used to determine if anything needs to be changed. Make sure to check all written content, including spelling and grammar. If your website has forms, ensure that they are working correctly as well. These might be important ways the users can get in touch with you or sign up for alerts and messages. Without these working properly, it can be very difficult for the user and also will be difficult for you to have a successful website.

Don’t just check the website once, but check it over multiple times. When you are confident that everything is in working order, you can go ahead and launch your website live. When it comes to launching, you are finally ready and can do this by uploading it to the server. You will need FTP (File Transfer Protocol) for this process. It is also important to make sure everything is running smoothly immediately after launching. Testing and launching may take 2-4 weeks to complete.

MAINTENANCE

You might think your job is done once the website is launched, but this is not the case. Since technology and products are changing more rapidly than ever before, it is important to stay up-to-date with what is happening on the internet. Maintaining a website is hard work, but the more effort put into its maintenance, the better. There are a few different pieces to website upkeep.

For one, it should constantly be checked out for errors. When a user encounters an error, this may be frustrating and may cause them to find what they are looking for somewhere else. Errors can also completely block them from the information they need to make a decision on purchasing a product or service. This is why it is important to not only test your website for user experience before the launch, but after as well.

User-experience should be tested often, and it should be ongoing. This will ensure that if something comes up, it can be fixed right away. A website that has constant broken links or outdated content will not make its users happy. By having regular maintenance on a website, bugs can be fixed as soon as they are detected. A problem cannot be fixed if it is not known. An unhappy user means that you are losing current or potential customers.

Another important aspect of maintaining a website is to ensure that all content is current. This means that the correct information is on the website such as contact information, pricing, and customer reviews. By giving bad or outdated information, a customer will not be able to get in touch with the business owner, complete a purchase, and it can be frustrating.

While maintaining a website can be important, it might seem like hard work. It is important to know that there are many tools out there that can be downloaded right onto the website. Reports can be sent daily or in other time increments to give you data and information about how the site is performing.