Web design checklist

A website has to be thoroughly planned; content and media aggregated which take time, However sometimes you may not have the liberty to plan things over time. This article tries to point a few tips to keep mind when you have to hurry through the web design cycle.

• Decide the number of pages you will need by creating a basic sitemap
• Narrow down on your target audience, demographics etc (Do not target everybody)
• Do a thorough competitor research
• Shortlist your USPs to highlight on slider or other media
• If you are an old business try and get testimonials from previous clients
• Check if the layout provided by designer goes well with your logo
• Never copy content from other sites as it's not an ethical practice
• Check your website content for plagiarism on various sites available online
• Do not over optimize your site for SEO
• Ask the designer to use keywords in file names and image alt
• Kindly inform your designer that you don't prefer justified text
• Check for broken links
• Check all aspects of the designers works if you have to go with the cheapest option
• Check site on multiple devices and browsers(older versions too)
• Have a clear Call to action
• Focus on usability
• Keep forms simple: Lengthy forms are a turn away for most people.
• Test the page load time: If your Pages are taking more than 5 seconds then it's more likely that your visitors will leave the page midway. Speak to your designer as to how to optimize by looking at browser caching, optimizing images, reducing HTML, minimalizing CSS and java script
• 301 Redirects: Make sure you have 301 redirects of your old pages to the new address. This ensures that people finding links to your old content will still be able to access it even though the URL has changed
• Install google analytics: Analytics gives you an insight into how people are reaching your site and browsing through it. It will give you insights like bounce rate etc.
• Submit your site to search engines

Once your site is launched you should concentrate on creating social media accounts to increase its visibility on the web.

Some of the places to begin with are

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Google Profiles
• YouTube: if you have any video content
• Flickr: if you have any interesting image content