Top tips for planning your website layout.

Planning your website layout before you start to populate can save you considerable time.  There are many aspects of the layout and content that can help you convert your website traffic into goals.

Define your goals

Evaluate the purpose of your website and establish at least one goal. For example, a goal could be:

• Purchase a product
• Sign up to a newsletter
• Request a quote
• Request a call back etc.

[To read more about how to define your goals and identifying your target market click here]

Goal Paths

Once you have established a goal you’ll need to define a goal path.  A goal path is the route which a visitor takes before reaching a goal.  To achieve a successful goal path consider the following:

• Keep the path as short or a direct as can be
• Don’t distract the visitor away from the path through links or adverts
• Supply enough information for the visitor to be able to make an informed decision, but not so much that the visitor loses interest
• Make the path intuitive by using “next” buttons or links
• Try to establish the visitor's needs by looking at the path from your visitor's point of view.

[To read more about how to define your goals and identifying your target market click here]

Preparing your website content

Once you have defined your goals and the logical goal paths, you’ll need to write the content. 

• Prepare all images, videos, forms etc. in advance
• If the text is being copied and pasted from another source use a program like Adobe Dreamweaver or even MS Notepad to strip out the unwanted font styles before you paste it into your website
• Make the text keyword rich

[For more information about content writing see our planning website content page.]

Quick links

Once you have defined the number of web pages and the content that needs writing you can decide which content pages should be made available as quick links.  Quick links should be links that you feel will either be of most benefit to your visitor's or of most benefit to you (but still of interest to the visitor).

If you are unsure about which links to use, the following quick link suggestions might help.

• Home
• Testimonials
• About us
• Contact us
• Services

Meta tags

Meta tags are read by search engines to help identify the content of your web pages.

For more information about writing meta tags click here:
 
By having all this information decided before you start populating each web page, you’ll find the process much easier.