The Internet creates tremendous opportunities for the development of the global economy and its individual elements. Therefore, today no one needs to explain how important it is for each company to have its own website, regardless of the volume of production capacity or gross income. A well-designed web page can bring tremendous results. Those who are not professionally involved in website development can encounter many pitfalls at the design stage . How to avoid them, we will tell you in this article.
What is site architecture?
It is customary to start creating with the development of architecture. The architecture of the site is a certain block diagram, so to speak, of a skeleton in which all the main components of the Internet resource are displayed. It would be worthwhile to note that it is more effective to initially work out the architecture in detail than to subsequently constantly change and modify it.
Steps for building a site architecture
The site architecture may vary in different cases, but in general this process goes through the following steps:
- Identify the purpose of the online site.
- The formation of the primary tasks of the site, based on the main goal.
- Optimization.
Stage 1: identification of the main goal
To get the desired result, you need to understand how you see your site, that is, determine its type:
- Business card site. Perhaps you are a professional photographer, in this case, the best site would be a business card site. This will be enough to reflect general information, contacts and a gallery of works.
- Landing page. This is most often a one-page site or containing 2-3 pages. The main goal is to stimulate the user to take a specific action: fill out a form, order a call, buy a product.
- Website of a commercial organization. It plays the role of more likely image advertising, striving to create a favorable image of this company in the minds of consumers. It can consist of several thematic pages: about the company, goods / services (sometimes with the addition of a price list), contacts, etc.
- Online store. Provides an opportunity for users to independently choose and pay for a product or service via the Internet. Suitable for companies with a wide range of products and an established system of interconnection of all internal structures of the organization.
If you decide to create a site from scratch, you need to consider its feasibility. So, for example, there is no need to develop a full-fledged online store for most companies engaged in the service sector (hairdresser, law office, translation agency, real estate company, etc.). In this case, the best option would be the site of a commercial company, where you can focus on the information component: paint the history / reputation of the organization, the quality of the services provided, publish customer reviews, share achievements.
Stage 2: the formation of technical specifications
If you have decided on the type of site you are planning, then you need to decide what functions it will perform. At this stage, the site architecture itself should be thought out, that is, the main sections. You should study the target audience and make sure that the site design contains everything that, in your opinion, will be important for the end user.
Take for example the site of a travel company. In addition to the standard sections: “main”, “about the company”, “services”, “contacts” - here you can add the section “reviews”, “promotions / hot tours”. In addition, such a resource will bring much greater usefulness for both parties if the opportunity is provided for users to register and start a personal account on it. Practice also shows that greater efficiency can be achieved if you place on the page a special search form for tours.
Thus, when planning an approximate site structure, you need to decide not only on the number of sections, but also on a set of tools (product / service search form, search string, filter, order call, leave feedback, online consultation, map or driving directions, etc.).
Stage 3: Implementation of technical specifications and optimization of architecture
After the rough draft of the site is ready and you have thought out its main subsystems, you need to start working on their components. Here, there are many so-called pitfalls.
You can go further in two ways: do it yourself or entrust the development and design of the websites of a professional company. Of course, it is up to you to decide, but, looking ahead, say, the result can be the same if you get to the point correctly.
How to make a site yourself?
It’s possible to independently create a web resource without having a lot of programming knowledge. To do this, you can use the free website builder (ucoz.ru, ruwix.com, nethouse.ru, a5.ru, etc.), on which you will be asked to choose one of the ready-made templates and add your content.
Regardless of whether you yourself will be developing or trust a professional company, before you start creating a site from scratch, you need to study the semantic core, that is, identify a list of key phrases by which the user searches for your service / product on the Internet. These keys need to be registered in sub-items of the menu or in the catalog items. This action will significantly increase the indexation of the site in search engines, that is, increase its rating.
In addition, we give a few recommendations for optimizing the architecture and the site as a whole:
- Internal linking and hyperlinks (placement of links for moving from one internal page to another. For example: “they buy with this product ...”).
- Different spellings of keywords (“Michelin tires” / “Michelin tires”).
- Website in several languages (if the target audience includes users from different countries)
- Convenient navigation, built on the principle: the simpler, the better.