HTML email newsletters have become a long quite the in-thing for many corporate conglomerates and even mid sized companies today. HTML email is still a very successful communications medium for both publishers and readers. Publishers can track rates for email opens, forwards, and click throughs, and thereby can measure reader interest in products and topics; readers are presented with information that's laid out like a web page, in a way that's more visually appealing, and much easier to scan and navigate, than plain text email.
In some ways, coding HTML email has become easier -- several email software providers, such as Google Mail, have improved their support for CSS. However, at the same time, Outlook 2007 has taken HTML email backwards: last year Microsoft substituted the original HTML rendering engine used by Outlook for an engine that is inferior in terms of CSS support.
Other advances in HTML email in the last couple of years include the formation of the Email Standards Project, which aims to test the compliance of email software to HTML and CSS standards and to lobby for improvements; the emergence of services for testing how HTML email renders in various desktop and web-based email applications; and the availability of HTML email templates that you can either use "as is" or customize to your preferences. We'll look at some of these services and templates in this article.
Despite these advances, coding HTML email can be a mix of misery and pain for programmers. This article will bring you up to date on how to code HTML email so that it will display well in most email software.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
AIT India
Web design and development company from india
11, 3rd Floor
Vasu Kanan Complex
Opp. Gujarat Vidyapith, RBI Lane,
Income Tax Area
Ahmedabad, Gujarat - 380014 (India)
Phone - +91-79-27582603 (O), +91-9824053129 (M)
web design company ahmedabad - Google Maps
11, 3rd Floor
Vasu Kanan Complex
Opp. Gujarat Vidyapith, RBI Lane,
Income Tax Area
Ahmedabad, Gujarat - 380014 (India)
Phone - +91-79-27582603 (O), +91-9824053129 (M)
web design company ahmedabad - Google Maps
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Web Design Essentials
Just imagine the Great Internet blast of the late 1990s. Websites of this blast do quench the thirst and hunger by providing cyberspace food and the much talked about technology.
These days, most site design is focused on the improvement and upgrade of existing Websites. As the economy continues to sag, more emphasis has been placed on maintaining what already exists, rather than creating a new one. As a result, productivity, ROI, and other measures of efficiency have found their way into the lexicon of Web design.
This focus on productivity has seen Website designs go back to basics. With the end user in mind, the prime focus of today’s sites is to provide information or make transactions quickly, simply, and without the distraction of long animated introductions, bombardment of visuals, or multi-hyperlink black holes.
So let's take a look at the basics of good Web design, as well as some of the current tools and technologies available to assist you in creating powerful, usable Websites. We'll also look at some concepts that are out there on the bleeding edge of design theory and browser technology, just to keep you excited all the time!
These days, most site design is focused on the improvement and upgrade of existing Websites. As the economy continues to sag, more emphasis has been placed on maintaining what already exists, rather than creating a new one. As a result, productivity, ROI, and other measures of efficiency have found their way into the lexicon of Web design.
This focus on productivity has seen Website designs go back to basics. With the end user in mind, the prime focus of today’s sites is to provide information or make transactions quickly, simply, and without the distraction of long animated introductions, bombardment of visuals, or multi-hyperlink black holes.
So let's take a look at the basics of good Web design, as well as some of the current tools and technologies available to assist you in creating powerful, usable Websites. We'll also look at some concepts that are out there on the bleeding edge of design theory and browser technology, just to keep you excited all the time!
Friday, August 01, 2008
Web Design Solution
It is advisable for one to have the web design for both the ecommerce aspect and also the web promotion for the marketing point of view. As it would attract more attention from the surfers and ultimately result into high level of strikes by the information seekers. The significant aspect here is that your investment costs are quite low while your sales figures would notch high figures! And it’s a proven fact that the net surfers often get lured to go for the sites who have an attractive and user friendly web design. The Internet is an exciting and fast developing phenomenon that has changed the paradigm of doing business for both sellers and buyers. This medium has its own typical charm and the excitement it offers to the online shoppers and surfers. It's fast, easy, secure and popular. Once you have designed your web site, it becomes a very potent tool of your overall marketing strategy. The web design today could yield a sizeable share in terms of sales revenue for your company compared to the other sales promotion tools of your company. The costs of the design component is quite low compared to other promotional costs such as the sales team, print & TV advertising, hoardings & billboards, direct marketing etc. There are a few pitfalls that the companies should avoid while going for web designing. The web content should be flawless, informative and authentic and yet should be brief to arouse interest among the surfers. Over and above this your company has to go for effective search engine optimization to achieve a high rank on major search engines. With the right prices, your web site would be able to fetch you more sales revenue as compared to the sales people employed in your company. To effectively design and develop a Web Site, one requires the vision and a sound understanding in a wide variety of new areas, including Web technologies, the unique aspects of the Web as a medium and the cyber world resources available, such as Web search engines and Web advertising, to help you increase the visibility and the strike rate of your Web Site. You might be eager to get your Web Site designed without compromising on the quality of your Web Site. You would also prefer to outsource this work from other countries that have the manpower and creative brains available at low costs that specialize in Web Design, Web Development and Web Maintenance. Web technology offers you exciting new business models for marketing, communications, e-commerce, publishing, online advertising, client/server applications, telephony, business-process optimization, entertainment, and eventually broadcasting. With a Web Site, an organization can reach a worldwide audience of literally millions of people, quickly and effectively. Because of its interactive nature, it can deliver tailor made information to each person for maximum results. Owing to these reasons the web site fever has been fast catching up with all the companies around the world. In fact the number of web sites is growing in a menacing speed and yet there are many companies still sitting on the fence and waiting for their web sites to get launched on the net.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Web Design Principles
Website Design Principles
Prominence
We had thrown enough light on the aspect of unity in our previous articles. There is another aspect of prominence or importance which is related to unity. It focuses on highlighting one specific element in the design rather than trying to fit all things together. The purpose here is to attract more attention from the surfers.When you design a web page layout, often you'll identify an item in the content, or the layout itself, that you want to stand out. Perhaps it's a button you want users to press, or an error message that you want them to read. One method of achieving such emphasis is by making that element into a focal point. A focal point is anything on a page that draws the viewer's eye, rather than just feeling like part of the page as a whole or blending in with its surroundings. As with unity, there are a few tried and true methods of achieving a focal point.Placement Although the constraints of practical web design do not often allow for it, the direct center of a composition is the point at which users look first, and is always the strongest location for producing emphasis. Continuance The idea behind continuance is that when our eyes start moving in one direction, they tend to continue along that path until a more dominant feature comes along. Even though the bottom splotch is bigger and tends to catch your eye first, your brain can't help but go to the small pointer on the left sometimes! You'll soon find yourself staring at the smaller object.Continuance is also one of the most common methods that web designers use to unify a layout. By default, the left edge of headings, copy, and images placed on a web page form a vertical line down the left side of a page before any styling is applied. A simple way to expand on this concept is to use the rule of thirds to line up other page elements along the lines of your grid.Isolation In the same way that proximity helps us create unity in a design, isolation promotes prominence. An item that stands out from its surroundings will tend to attract attention. For e.g. you have various flower vases on different pages of your web design. While on the main page you have just one beautiful flower like daffodils or a lily. The viewers automatically tend to notice this singular flower which stands out differently in the design. That’s how isolation works.Contrast Contrast is defined as the juxtaposition of dissimilar graphic elements, and is the most common method used to create emphasis in a layout. The concept is simple: the greater the difference between a graphic element and its surroundings, the more that element will stand out. Contrast can be created using differences in color, size, and shape.Take an example of an ecommerce web site that sells just one item per day. When you look at this layout, what's the first thing that grabs your attention? Probably the viewers would first notice the product they're selling. Now the product in this site changes daily. So the question is “what grabs your eye after that?” Obviously the answer is “I want one” button. Although the same colors are used elsewhere in the design, the oval shape isn't. When set against an area of white space, the button has both contrast and isolation working to highlight it. This site has a definite purpose that the viewers really click that button.Proportion One interesting way of highlighting in a composition is through the use of proportion. Proportion is a principle of design that has to do with differences in the scale of objects. If we place an object in an environment that's of larger or smaller scale than the object itself, that object will appear larger or smaller than it does in real life. This difference in proportion draws viewers' attention to the object, as it seems out of place in that context.You can take just one lily or a daffodil flower and can superimpose it on the house and see how it draws the attention of the viewers! This principle works for miniaturization as well. Sometimes even reduction in the size highlights one particular object in a design. Consider a miniature version of a male or a female in the design. This small image stands out distinctly because of its proportion that different than the surrounding. A few standard HTML tags and CSS properties have been designed to take advantage of the preceding theories to create emphasis in a web page even without customization. For isolation of content consider the block quote element. This element indents the left- and right-hand side of any text placed within it, purposely breaking the continuation lines of the page content and drawing attention to itself. For positioning, consider the position property in CSS. By absolutely positioning an object with CSS, you take it out of the flow of its containing block, so you can place it strategically to draw attention. And when you think about contrast, think about the blink tag. Don't ever think about the blink tag. Yes, it creates contrast ... over and over and over again. Please don't use it. Don't get any ideas about using a marquee tag either. Design is just as much about what we leave out as it is about what we put in.
Bread-and-butter LayoutsMost of what we've talked about thus far has been design theory. Theory's good, but it can only take us so far toward understanding why some ideas work--and others don't--in a web site's design. Most academic graphic design programs include a curriculum that's rich in art history and fine art. These classes provide a great foundation for an understanding of graphic design from an art perspective, but they do little to prepare you for the specific challenges you encounter when you take your designs to the Web.When you look out across the Internet, you can see that the possibilities for layout really are endless. But, only a few of those possibilities make good design sense. That's why we see certain configurations of identity, navigation, and content over and over again.Left-column Navigation Regardless of whether we're talking about liquid or fixed-width layout design, the left-column navigation format is the de facto standard. Many sites that fit into this mold don't necessarily use the left column as the main navigation block--sometimes you'll see the navigation along the top of the page--but they still divide the layout below the header into a narrow (one-third or less) left column and a wide right column. It's a status quo, like a security blanket. For those reasons, a layout featuring left-column navigation is a safe choice for any project.The downside to sites that use left-column navigation is that they can lack creativity. They've been done so many times, and in so many ways that they tend to look the same. That's not to say you shouldn't use a left-column navigation layout. But the question is “how to do something different?” It can be done by picking that left column up and sticking it on the other side of the content. Then you'd have a right-column navigation layout.Right-column Navigation Although it's difficult to find sites that place the main site navigation along the right-hand side of the layout, it's quite easy to find sites that use a right-hand column for sub-navigation, advertising, or sub-content. Since, in western cultures, our eyes scan from left to right, this allows the page's main content to be the first thing viewers see. The same might not hold good for cultures in other regions like east!
There are very less sites today that make use for right column designs. However viewers very naturally intend their cursors to hover on the right side of the browser window anyway. Ultimately, this is a decision that's really about the needs of your clients and how they want people to perceive their online presence. Left-column navigation is familiar and more standard, but that's not always the number one priority in designing a new site. One thing's for sure, though: if you want your design to be different from the average web site, but you still want users to be able to find your navigation, you should give a right-column layout a try.Three-column Navigation The typical three-column layout has a wide center column flanked by two diminutive navigational columns. Although three columns may be necessary on pages that have a ton of navigation, short bits of content, or advertising to display, it's important to remember that white space is essential if we are to keep a layout from appearing cluttered. In the three columns on the main page, a white space center column promotes eye movements of the viewers.Expansive Footer Navigation If you scroll to the bottoms of pages on many of the most recently redesigned sites, you're likely to see an interesting new trend. Rather than using the footer for main links and a copyright notice, many sites are expanding to include contact information, expanded site navigation, and extra content such as blogrolls, linkrolls, Flickr badges, and so on. Although putting a site's main navigational element at the bottom of the page isn't a good idea, the concept of including "bonus" navigation and content in that space is being noticed across many sites today.Three Columns with Content First The majority of fresh three-column site designs that have been produced lately have put the content first. It means that such sites are locating the content on the far left of the display. This concept gives a professional touch to the site.Although this isn't really a new idea, it's been practice by many site designers lately in both liquid- and fixed-width site designs. The majority of three-column layouts usually switch to a two-column structure outside the homepage. By placing the content on the left, the transition from three columns to two is more natural, as the content column can simply expand, rather than having to relocate completely. Resizing: Fixed Width vs. Liquid Width We had discussed about the containing block, and whether or not it would expand to fill the page in one of our articles earlier. In fact, the fixed-versus-liquid is still a matter of debate anyhow. Some web gurus even opine that liquid layouts are out of use now.But most of the designers have established their own opinions in regard to the fixed-versus-liquid debate. The decision to use one type of layout over the other should really be determined by the target audience and the accessibility goals of each individual web site. But, regardless of personal preferences, it's important to put the needs of your client first. If you're deciding on the width of a fixed-width layout, you have to think about the audience for which you're designing, and create a layout that meets the needs of those users.
Prominence
We had thrown enough light on the aspect of unity in our previous articles. There is another aspect of prominence or importance which is related to unity. It focuses on highlighting one specific element in the design rather than trying to fit all things together. The purpose here is to attract more attention from the surfers.When you design a web page layout, often you'll identify an item in the content, or the layout itself, that you want to stand out. Perhaps it's a button you want users to press, or an error message that you want them to read. One method of achieving such emphasis is by making that element into a focal point. A focal point is anything on a page that draws the viewer's eye, rather than just feeling like part of the page as a whole or blending in with its surroundings. As with unity, there are a few tried and true methods of achieving a focal point.Placement Although the constraints of practical web design do not often allow for it, the direct center of a composition is the point at which users look first, and is always the strongest location for producing emphasis. Continuance The idea behind continuance is that when our eyes start moving in one direction, they tend to continue along that path until a more dominant feature comes along. Even though the bottom splotch is bigger and tends to catch your eye first, your brain can't help but go to the small pointer on the left sometimes! You'll soon find yourself staring at the smaller object.Continuance is also one of the most common methods that web designers use to unify a layout. By default, the left edge of headings, copy, and images placed on a web page form a vertical line down the left side of a page before any styling is applied. A simple way to expand on this concept is to use the rule of thirds to line up other page elements along the lines of your grid.Isolation In the same way that proximity helps us create unity in a design, isolation promotes prominence. An item that stands out from its surroundings will tend to attract attention. For e.g. you have various flower vases on different pages of your web design. While on the main page you have just one beautiful flower like daffodils or a lily. The viewers automatically tend to notice this singular flower which stands out differently in the design. That’s how isolation works.Contrast Contrast is defined as the juxtaposition of dissimilar graphic elements, and is the most common method used to create emphasis in a layout. The concept is simple: the greater the difference between a graphic element and its surroundings, the more that element will stand out. Contrast can be created using differences in color, size, and shape.Take an example of an ecommerce web site that sells just one item per day. When you look at this layout, what's the first thing that grabs your attention? Probably the viewers would first notice the product they're selling. Now the product in this site changes daily. So the question is “what grabs your eye after that?” Obviously the answer is “I want one” button. Although the same colors are used elsewhere in the design, the oval shape isn't. When set against an area of white space, the button has both contrast and isolation working to highlight it. This site has a definite purpose that the viewers really click that button.Proportion One interesting way of highlighting in a composition is through the use of proportion. Proportion is a principle of design that has to do with differences in the scale of objects. If we place an object in an environment that's of larger or smaller scale than the object itself, that object will appear larger or smaller than it does in real life. This difference in proportion draws viewers' attention to the object, as it seems out of place in that context.You can take just one lily or a daffodil flower and can superimpose it on the house and see how it draws the attention of the viewers! This principle works for miniaturization as well. Sometimes even reduction in the size highlights one particular object in a design. Consider a miniature version of a male or a female in the design. This small image stands out distinctly because of its proportion that different than the surrounding. A few standard HTML tags and CSS properties have been designed to take advantage of the preceding theories to create emphasis in a web page even without customization. For isolation of content consider the block quote element. This element indents the left- and right-hand side of any text placed within it, purposely breaking the continuation lines of the page content and drawing attention to itself. For positioning, consider the position property in CSS. By absolutely positioning an object with CSS, you take it out of the flow of its containing block, so you can place it strategically to draw attention. And when you think about contrast, think about the blink tag. Don't ever think about the blink tag. Yes, it creates contrast ... over and over and over again. Please don't use it. Don't get any ideas about using a marquee tag either. Design is just as much about what we leave out as it is about what we put in.
Bread-and-butter LayoutsMost of what we've talked about thus far has been design theory. Theory's good, but it can only take us so far toward understanding why some ideas work--and others don't--in a web site's design. Most academic graphic design programs include a curriculum that's rich in art history and fine art. These classes provide a great foundation for an understanding of graphic design from an art perspective, but they do little to prepare you for the specific challenges you encounter when you take your designs to the Web.When you look out across the Internet, you can see that the possibilities for layout really are endless. But, only a few of those possibilities make good design sense. That's why we see certain configurations of identity, navigation, and content over and over again.Left-column Navigation Regardless of whether we're talking about liquid or fixed-width layout design, the left-column navigation format is the de facto standard. Many sites that fit into this mold don't necessarily use the left column as the main navigation block--sometimes you'll see the navigation along the top of the page--but they still divide the layout below the header into a narrow (one-third or less) left column and a wide right column. It's a status quo, like a security blanket. For those reasons, a layout featuring left-column navigation is a safe choice for any project.The downside to sites that use left-column navigation is that they can lack creativity. They've been done so many times, and in so many ways that they tend to look the same. That's not to say you shouldn't use a left-column navigation layout. But the question is “how to do something different?” It can be done by picking that left column up and sticking it on the other side of the content. Then you'd have a right-column navigation layout.Right-column Navigation Although it's difficult to find sites that place the main site navigation along the right-hand side of the layout, it's quite easy to find sites that use a right-hand column for sub-navigation, advertising, or sub-content. Since, in western cultures, our eyes scan from left to right, this allows the page's main content to be the first thing viewers see. The same might not hold good for cultures in other regions like east!
There are very less sites today that make use for right column designs. However viewers very naturally intend their cursors to hover on the right side of the browser window anyway. Ultimately, this is a decision that's really about the needs of your clients and how they want people to perceive their online presence. Left-column navigation is familiar and more standard, but that's not always the number one priority in designing a new site. One thing's for sure, though: if you want your design to be different from the average web site, but you still want users to be able to find your navigation, you should give a right-column layout a try.Three-column Navigation The typical three-column layout has a wide center column flanked by two diminutive navigational columns. Although three columns may be necessary on pages that have a ton of navigation, short bits of content, or advertising to display, it's important to remember that white space is essential if we are to keep a layout from appearing cluttered. In the three columns on the main page, a white space center column promotes eye movements of the viewers.Expansive Footer Navigation If you scroll to the bottoms of pages on many of the most recently redesigned sites, you're likely to see an interesting new trend. Rather than using the footer for main links and a copyright notice, many sites are expanding to include contact information, expanded site navigation, and extra content such as blogrolls, linkrolls, Flickr badges, and so on. Although putting a site's main navigational element at the bottom of the page isn't a good idea, the concept of including "bonus" navigation and content in that space is being noticed across many sites today.Three Columns with Content First The majority of fresh three-column site designs that have been produced lately have put the content first. It means that such sites are locating the content on the far left of the display. This concept gives a professional touch to the site.Although this isn't really a new idea, it's been practice by many site designers lately in both liquid- and fixed-width site designs. The majority of three-column layouts usually switch to a two-column structure outside the homepage. By placing the content on the left, the transition from three columns to two is more natural, as the content column can simply expand, rather than having to relocate completely. Resizing: Fixed Width vs. Liquid Width We had discussed about the containing block, and whether or not it would expand to fill the page in one of our articles earlier. In fact, the fixed-versus-liquid is still a matter of debate anyhow. Some web gurus even opine that liquid layouts are out of use now.But most of the designers have established their own opinions in regard to the fixed-versus-liquid debate. The decision to use one type of layout over the other should really be determined by the target audience and the accessibility goals of each individual web site. But, regardless of personal preferences, it's important to put the needs of your client first. If you're deciding on the width of a fixed-width layout, you have to think about the audience for which you're designing, and create a layout that meets the needs of those users.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Web Promotion (Internet Marketing)
Today we witness that some of the biggest brands get bombed in spite of the companies spending millions of dollars in the market research, brand designing, manufacturing and than marketing it. The reason is that these brands failed in terms of visibility among the customers! Hence it is not just developing the web, but to smartly promoting it on the net that brings results.
Today the number of people or surfers who search for information on net is quite high. The most likely first thing they do while on the net is to search for something they seek on the search engines like Google, Yahoo etc.
Hence ideally web promotion through these search engine optimization (SEO) is the most sensible option to achieve positive results. One should get listed with Search Engines, Directories, Announcement Sites, Award Sites and "Cool Site Guides", Banner Advertising, Electronic Publications, Public Domain Message Boards etc.
The most easy and effective Web promotion or Internet marketing is search engine marketing (SEM). In this option you can get listed in search engines either by a paid listing or free listing. Free listing is the most convenient way of Web promotion or web marketing. For the free search engine listing, get the Web Page optimized first to make it search engine compatible.
However here one has to be cautious before deciding to go for free listing or paid one. The difference here would be in terms of the positioning of your advertisement or the link and the duration of the time allocated to your web site promotion. If you are paying for your web promotion, you are bound to get good positions and the length of time for your web site.
It is also a human mentality where in consumers associate the quality with the price and also advertisements of the brands. There is a perception that advertised brands have high quality compared to the free goods. Hence the smart decision is to go for the paid web promotion on the search engines to gain more visibility and number of hits per day from the information seekers on the net.
Today the number of people or surfers who search for information on net is quite high. The most likely first thing they do while on the net is to search for something they seek on the search engines like Google, Yahoo etc.
Hence ideally web promotion through these search engine optimization (SEO) is the most sensible option to achieve positive results. One should get listed with Search Engines, Directories, Announcement Sites, Award Sites and "Cool Site Guides", Banner Advertising, Electronic Publications, Public Domain Message Boards etc.
The most easy and effective Web promotion or Internet marketing is search engine marketing (SEM). In this option you can get listed in search engines either by a paid listing or free listing. Free listing is the most convenient way of Web promotion or web marketing. For the free search engine listing, get the Web Page optimized first to make it search engine compatible.
However here one has to be cautious before deciding to go for free listing or paid one. The difference here would be in terms of the positioning of your advertisement or the link and the duration of the time allocated to your web site promotion. If you are paying for your web promotion, you are bound to get good positions and the length of time for your web site.
It is also a human mentality where in consumers associate the quality with the price and also advertisements of the brands. There is a perception that advertised brands have high quality compared to the free goods. Hence the smart decision is to go for the paid web promotion on the search engines to gain more visibility and number of hits per day from the information seekers on the net.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Web Design Tips
Whether you're building the dream house for your family or your organization's Website, you need to start with a plan. The plan is the fundamental first step you need to take before designing a web site. An effective plan starts with quality information, and to get quality information you need to get the right information. And you get this information by asking yourself the right questions.Here's a Site Planner, a collection of focused questions to help you jump-start the information gathering process. Each section (Background, Audience, Resources, Competition and Content) asks several basic questions along with "Next Steps" for detailed follow-up. For best results involve as many persons as possible -- business/process owners, marketing and sales staff, IT folks, content managers, developers and customers. Ready? Sharpen your pencils and roll up your sleeves. And good luck enhancing your Web presence!
Background
Goals. What are your specific goals? Consider
company/brand awareness,
product/services awareness,
product/services sales,
community building,
entertainment,
knowledge sharing, and
internal communications.
Promotional Fit. How should your Website fit with current promotional and marketing strategies and materials?
Deadlines. What are the schedule or deadline requirements?
Funding. What are the budgetary constraints?
Measurement. How will you measure the success of the site?
Next Steps:
Develop a ranked (from most- to least-important) Goals Master List.
Create a mission statement for the site.
Identify how the mission and goals of the site might change from short-term to long-term, given the direction of your organization and industry.
Audience
External. Who is your EXTERNAL audience? Consider:
current customers,
potential customers,
suppliers,
professional/trade organizations,
investors,
competitors,
children,
schools/educators, and
Internal. Who is your INTERNAL audience? Consider
all employees,
management,
marketing/sales,
operations, and
IT.
Sub-groups. Determine all subgroups within the audiences identified above.
Define. Identify the interests, technical skills and special issues for each audience group and subgroup.
Next Steps:
Create a ranked Audience Master List.
Develop an Aligned Master List by matching the Audience Master List to the Goals Master List.
Create usage scenarios based on Aligned Master List.
Resources
Project Roles. Who are the resources that will be responsible for content management and technical support (include their names, titles, roles, and contact info)?
Team Skills. What are the technical and content management skills of each resource?
Step-By-Step Site PlannerResources
Project Roles. Who are the resources that will be responsible for content management and technical support (include their names, titles, roles, and contact info)?
Team Skills. What are the technical and content management skills of each resource?
Next Steps: For each resource, identify any training, software, hardware, scheduling and budgetary issues.
Competition
Identify Competitors. Identify the sites of competitors and others that may provide direction for your site.
Important Elements. Identify the important elements of each competitor site:
functional features,
technologies used,
breadth of content and
look-and-feel.
Next Steps:
Develop a competitive analysis that includes the important elements of key competitor sites and which of these elements your site should match, exceed, or avoid.
On a regular basis, revisit key competitor sites and update your competitive analysis.
Content
Functionality. Which functional features should your site offer? Consider:
ecommerce/shopping cart,
site search,
customer service/support,
tech support,
discussion forums,
newsletter,
catalog/information
order forms,
feedback form,
member logon,
password protected areas, and
SSL-encrypted areas.
Information. Which informational elements should your site contain? Consider:
About Us page,
Contact Us page,
copyright notice, and
privacy statement.
Structure. What is your site's hierarchy? For each of the 4-7 (though you can have more or less) main areas of the site, identify:
each main menu item,
all submenu items, and
additional content.
Think of a tree-style hierarchy with the home page at the top. Next Steps:
Describe in detail each functional feature. What exactly will it do?
Identify the resources required, and any technical and budgetary issues associated with each functional feature.
Provide detail for each informational element.
Assign content responsibilities to the resources identified above.
SummaryExperience shows that questions raised and answered in one section may evolve ideas and issues in other sections. This is a good thing, and reinforces the fact that the Site Planner can (and probably should) be used effectively. In fact, we've found it useful for periodic reviews of existing Websites.The more time and effort your organization devotes to this information gathering process, the more likely you are to build an effective, attractive and user friendly Web presence.
Happy planning!
Background
Goals. What are your specific goals? Consider
company/brand awareness,
product/services awareness,
product/services sales,
community building,
entertainment,
knowledge sharing, and
internal communications.
Promotional Fit. How should your Website fit with current promotional and marketing strategies and materials?
Deadlines. What are the schedule or deadline requirements?
Funding. What are the budgetary constraints?
Measurement. How will you measure the success of the site?
Next Steps:
Develop a ranked (from most- to least-important) Goals Master List.
Create a mission statement for the site.
Identify how the mission and goals of the site might change from short-term to long-term, given the direction of your organization and industry.
Audience
External. Who is your EXTERNAL audience? Consider:
current customers,
potential customers,
suppliers,
professional/trade organizations,
investors,
competitors,
children,
schools/educators, and
Internal. Who is your INTERNAL audience? Consider
all employees,
management,
marketing/sales,
operations, and
IT.
Sub-groups. Determine all subgroups within the audiences identified above.
Define. Identify the interests, technical skills and special issues for each audience group and subgroup.
Next Steps:
Create a ranked Audience Master List.
Develop an Aligned Master List by matching the Audience Master List to the Goals Master List.
Create usage scenarios based on Aligned Master List.
Resources
Project Roles. Who are the resources that will be responsible for content management and technical support (include their names, titles, roles, and contact info)?
Team Skills. What are the technical and content management skills of each resource?
Step-By-Step Site PlannerResources
Project Roles. Who are the resources that will be responsible for content management and technical support (include their names, titles, roles, and contact info)?
Team Skills. What are the technical and content management skills of each resource?
Next Steps: For each resource, identify any training, software, hardware, scheduling and budgetary issues.
Competition
Identify Competitors. Identify the sites of competitors and others that may provide direction for your site.
Important Elements. Identify the important elements of each competitor site:
functional features,
technologies used,
breadth of content and
look-and-feel.
Next Steps:
Develop a competitive analysis that includes the important elements of key competitor sites and which of these elements your site should match, exceed, or avoid.
On a regular basis, revisit key competitor sites and update your competitive analysis.
Content
Functionality. Which functional features should your site offer? Consider:
ecommerce/shopping cart,
site search,
customer service/support,
tech support,
discussion forums,
newsletter,
catalog/information
order forms,
feedback form,
member logon,
password protected areas, and
SSL-encrypted areas.
Information. Which informational elements should your site contain? Consider:
About Us page,
Contact Us page,
copyright notice, and
privacy statement.
Structure. What is your site's hierarchy? For each of the 4-7 (though you can have more or less) main areas of the site, identify:
each main menu item,
all submenu items, and
additional content.
Think of a tree-style hierarchy with the home page at the top. Next Steps:
Describe in detail each functional feature. What exactly will it do?
Identify the resources required, and any technical and budgetary issues associated with each functional feature.
Provide detail for each informational element.
Assign content responsibilities to the resources identified above.
SummaryExperience shows that questions raised and answered in one section may evolve ideas and issues in other sections. This is a good thing, and reinforces the fact that the Site Planner can (and probably should) be used effectively. In fact, we've found it useful for periodic reviews of existing Websites.The more time and effort your organization devotes to this information gathering process, the more likely you are to build an effective, attractive and user friendly Web presence.
Happy planning!
http://a-itindia.com/article_detail.php?aiid=52
Building a Content Rich Website
Have you ever thought about that first vital factor which attracts the visitor to your site? And that aspect that also keeps him glued to your site? It is of course the content of your site. For obvious reasons the visitors actually are more concerned with the written text and information rather than the color scheme or jazzy graphics and animations.
You might run a wonderful advertising campaign; develop effective marketing tools and attractive affiliate programs. But unless your Website is rich in content, you will not be able to garner sufficient hits to your site. Content that is useful, valuable, informative, educational or just plain entertaining can attract and retain an audience better than anything else.
Anyone can create a content-rich Website by following a few key points:
· Be disciplined· Update your site regularly· Know how to create content, or where to find it
Have you ever thought about that first vital factor which attracts the visitor to your site? And that aspect that also keeps him glued to your site? It is of course the content of your site. For obvious reasons the visitors actually are more concerned with the written text and information rather than the color scheme or jazzy graphics and animations.
You might run a wonderful advertising campaign; develop effective marketing tools and attractive affiliate programs. But unless your Website is rich in content, you will not be able to garner sufficient hits to your site. Content that is useful, valuable, informative, educational or just plain entertaining can attract and retain an audience better than anything else.
Anyone can create a content-rich Website by following a few key points:
· Be disciplined· Update your site regularly· Know how to create content, or where to find it
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
