Alec is a regular member of our live community. Recently, he sent me his top 10 list of tips to help you with good Web Design. Even though I wasn’t able to do a video on this email, I wanted to pass them along to all of you.

1. Why? Why do you need a site? What do you need to do? Get more leads? Sales? Votes? Look cool? Will search engines be important? If you can’t answer, better wait until you have a strategic plan for your company overall.
2. Audience. Before anything else, you have to figure out who you’re creating your site for. What are the 1-4 questions they’ll have in their heads that, if answered, will mean they’re going to call, buy, or take whatever action they need to?
3. Architecture. Create the site map. The map shows how your site will be structured. It could be fancy and complex, or simple. It could be drawn on a napkin, even. Just so long as it provides a rational structure for your presence.
4. Wireframe. Then show where stuff will go on each page. Think of this as a site map, but for each page (a page map?).
5. Design. Create the pretty stuff. This is what most folks call ‘Web site design’. Notice that it’s step 4? A lot of thinking goes into this, making sure that the way the site looks fits the site’s role.
6. Mockup. Take the design and turn it into a set of Web page templates that you can view in your Web browser. The mockup is the model for the site. It shows how drop downs will work, and how processes like checkout or information requests will look.
7. Test the Mockup. Then test the mockup. Is it standards-compliant? Does it look good in all major browsers? Does it present the most search-friendly and accessible information structure to the Internet? This is the chance to test before you build the site.
8. Add the Tools. If you’re using a content management system (CMS), then the developers go to work, adding the mockup templates to the system. If you’re collecting leads, they’ll build the database and code to handle that, too. Finally, they’ll make sure you’re equipped for analytics.
9. Add the Content. Type in the content, lay out each page, and check for spelling errors, etc.. If search engine optimization matters, tweak the content for best keyword richness.
10. Test, Test, and more Test. Test the site for errors (broken links, crashes, and server errors) and bugs (sneaky things that aren’t immediately evident, like, say, your shopping cart not storing the ZIP code on orders).

Top Ten Tips for Web Site Design