Websites: Part Deux

Okay, so last week I mentioned that I was going to revamp my website and so I have started the process. I was actually a technology major in university and as such, I could probably figure out the coding for a webpage on my own—if I had time. Key words there, if I had time.

Now I imagine that many of you writers out there are similar. Unless you are making big time bucks or at least enough to afford a web designer/builder, you are trying to put together and maintain your own site. You’d prefer something low or no hassle, user-friendly and fairly quick. As I mentioned last week, there are several sites out there that offer hosting and website building. Many of them offer you options that are a bit more hands-on (for those of you who want that) as well as those that are easy and user-friendly. Previously, I used Intuit which was nice but required more work that I have time for. It gave me flexibility but what I really wanted was something that would take care of most the hard work for me, without sacrificing a nice look. I found that with Fat Cow, which if you purchase the basic package, pretty much provides you with standardized templates and easy drag and drop technology. Premium packets and builders provide you with more flexibility but that wasn’t what I was looking for.

Now, either way, there are some import things to remember when setting up a page. I can’t possibly fit all of them here so I’m going to list a few and provide you all some resources for further research.

While many of us will immediately think of things like layout and pretty templates (there are some great ones on wix.com), few begin to think of the more intricate things like site speed and what actually contributes to a fast site and why that is important. This article has some good tips on keeping your site fast and therefore within the “patience guidelines” of your viewers.

Websites are very much like presentations in the workplace. You need to keep them visually appealing and keep the content relevant and interesting. That means good color schemes and design, getting your point across on your pages in an efficient and effective way, branding your site so that it represents you the way you want to be represented and lastly, great navigation. Cyberindian.com has some great tips to help you with these designs.

The tips and websites I’ve linked you to today (and last week), should be enough to have you establish your own site and set up a great design. Next week, we’ll focus on blogs and reaching out to have portions of your website designed for you (banners, etc.)

In the meantime, happy writing!

Filed under: Business, Marketing, Toni Kelly