Key Theory Web Design

Well the new design of the Key Theory website  is well underway. I’ve got to laugh at myself a bit for having a hack-job up on my site for a couple months now. Designing for yourself can be challenging. Why is that? You know what you like and you don’t have anyone to answer to besides yourself. Well it’s different for different people. There are actually a few designers that I know that enjoy designing for themselves. But most designers and even design shops fall into traps that we warn our own clients about.

Here are several pitfalls and ways to get around them.

1. Not doing your homework or having a strategy.
   This is a sure fire way to fail, if you don’t know what goals you’re trying to achieve then you are most likely not going to reach them. You need to figure out the goals for your site and develop your site around those goals.
2. Taking the cheap route
   Some people try to save money or time buy going with a plug and play template or having their friend’s son build them a web site. IF you really want to get a return on investment, make an investment. Would you want someone to put on a roof on your house for $100? Probably not that’d be scary, same is for web just because you can’t see the difference a professional can and so can your results. No need to spend top dollar but find someone with reasonable rates and be willing to make an investment into your company if you expect others to.
3. There is no absolute perfect.
   Too many people fall for this one; trying to get everything completely perfect before moving to the next stage. Don’t get me wrong you should have the major wrinkles ironed out but no need to be perfect your site can changed. It is not set in stone. You can launch the site and continue to refine and add to it as time goes on.

The 6 main categories of web sites:

• Web Based Sales – Selling products on-line / E-commerce
• Offline Sales – Selling products but on stores or through traditional retail
• Generating Leads – Getting new business or possible customers
• Market Awareness – Letting consumers know about a particular product or service
• Informative or Entertaining – Just for the sake of sharing info or entertainment with others
• Influential or Persuasion – Trying to influence a person to lean towards a new direction, product or stance

These different types can overlap and be mixed up but realizing what type of site you’re dealing with can make a big difference to how you go about designing the site, marketing it or optimizing it for search engines.

I see KeyTheory.com falls into the Generating Leads, Market Awareness, and Informative categories and will keep that in mind when planning out the rest of the site.

Well there are a lot of different ways you can go in regards to designing a web site. The medium is constantly changing and so are the techniques. Not every project is the same so processes should be modified to meet specific project needs.

Below outlines five core processes / steps to design a web site:

Define

• Discover
• Plan
• Clarify

Structure

• Content Plan
• Structure Site
• Structure Pages

Design

• Create
• Review & Refine
• Complete

Develop

• Pre-Production – Set up for success
• Production – Build
• Post Production – Q/A

Measure

• Launch
• Clean up
• Maintain
• Measure and Analyze

Future blog posts will break down these steps further.

Thanks to Lynda.com for being a great resource and helping other gain knowledge in the industry.

So I decided to create a new web site.

I am a web designer so I should have one. I’ve actually had many. The last version I had did pretty good and got me some decent business but since I have a full time job, do freelance, play in a band, have a wife and own a house my web site took the back burner and became out dated. Also my knowledge, skills and perspective has grown and my mission and goals have shifted a bit.

So now that I’ve decided to build a new web site what should I do?

I plan to follow a similar process that I would do for a client to help them assess their needs. Typically I’d provide a client with a Client Needs Analysis form that basically asks them 1) Where they currently are. 2) Where they want to go. and then I work with them to decide the best way to achieve their goals with their needs and budget in mind.

Starting my site strategy process I need to:

• Review my current digital footprint
• Identify goals for my company
• Identify goals for my site
• Define my target audience
• Define my desired net impression and positioning
• Develop a site architecture
• Create an outline of any additional site functionality
• Develop the blue prints for my seo strategy
• Document a social media strategy

Once I’ve got these things defined, I will have the basis for my overall web site design strategy. Of course as time progresses and technology changes it will evolve. So with this in mind I need to also keep in mind site scalability and defining time to update my site.

Hooray, I’ve got work to do!