Web Site Design

Web Site Design

Perhaps the most important step in the design of your web site is planning how it is to be organized. It all starts with your web site business strategy - how does your site work for your business? Getting found, providing information, getting customers to contact your, and making sales can all be part of it.

Logical Navigation System

Unless you have a site with only a few pages, the navigation structure is the only way that your visitors will find the pages that interest them. So, you can list every page (site map) or you can group them into a logical hierarchy. This way a visitor can use the navigation menu you provide to get to the page they want.

One of the best ways to do this is to determine the different audience groups who will visit your site. Then you separate them into more manageable sections of your site. Crayola does a good job of this by splitting children, parents, and teachers on the main page. (Each is looking for something a little different, all of value to the company.)

If you have a real big site, you also will want to include some kind of on-site search option as well.

Purposeful Navigation System

Perhaps even more important than helping visitors find the page they want is to help them find the page YOU want them to find. This is called the MWR (Most Wanted Response) by Ken Evoy in Make Your Site Sell. It is the response you most want them to have to your site.

Many times it ends at the "Order Now" button. In other cases it is the "Contact Me" form. And others it is the "Subscribe to Our Newsletter" link. Or it could be to bookmark your site, give your office a call, etc.

The point is, you can also set up your site structure to lead visitors through some general sequences of pages, each of which leads to a desirable response for you. They won't all go there, but if it is not setup, NONE of them will go there!