hmmbird design and art

This is part two of a series of posts I will be adding for anyone who is interested in creating a website, having a Designer/ Programmer create a site for them or just interested in the process.  They are to serve as a reference to understanding more of the project management process of web design rather than specific design techniques or code tutorials.

Project Website Phase 2: Organize and Outline Your Website for Content

So assuming you have a basic idea what you want out of your website and have the answers (or similar) to the brainstorm questions from the previous post, you will need to make some sense out of them for yourself or for your web designer. If you are a visual person you may be tempted to just skip to drawing the visual pieces to the website layout rather than outlining the content, resisting this temptation will may make you thankful later.  Organizing your thoughts and outlining your site’s content first is very important and will save you time in the long run.

Why is Content So Important?

Content Feeds Function and Design

The outline is your website’s foundation and you will be using this to structure the functionality and design of your website.  When looking at all the pieces and phases involved in the making of a website, your content makes the number one priority list, second and third being the functionality and design.

Search Engine Optimization

Without the content, there is not much information for the search engines to read and index for key words.  This means that unless someone is specifically searching your name or your site name then the likelihood that your site will surface is greatly decreased.

The Outline

Did you determine that your site is simply a virtual business card or a site providing a lot of information?  If you have a many points to get across then maybe they need to be broken into groups, or sub-navigation.  The jest of the outline is to see the summary and framework of the website’s main points, the minor points and what best fits together in an organized way.   

Your Sites Home Page

The home page is the introduction of the site or maybe it’s the only page you have; it is what people will see when first clicking on the address, or URL. The home page is the starting point for your outline and should be a map, so to speak, of everything they can get to.  So to use the analogy of a book, the home page (if there is more than one page) becomes a table of content with entry points to different chapters and paragraphs of the entire book.

Main Navigation and Sub Navigation

Following this same analogy, if you have more than one page or link on your website, then your site will have a navigation menu or a way to see what else is there. The main navigation of your site should consist of the key points that make up your website and the smaller bits of information related to main topic are then considered sub navigation.  Outlining is a way to see this information.

Choose an outline style that works for you

I am using outline very loosely to convey that whatever your method to organizing your content is fine.  Some people choose the more traditional methods of outlining, for example…

I. Home- Some Website

A. About

B. Services

1. Service 1

2. Service 2

C. Portfolio

1. Gallery 1

2. Gallery 2

D. Contact

Or maybe you like to make flowcharts like the one below, or both.

At this point I just get a general outline and starting filling in the information, you can move the titles and content around later.

Happy Organizing!