Designing & building
great websites
www.designbystructure.com

Designing & building
great websites
www.designbystructure.com
For people who want
to produce outstanding
websites but don’t
know how

Its easy to get confused
about designing and
building websites

People talk in riddles...
CMS
PHP
Taxonomy
Mashup
MySQL
.NET
Ruby on
Web
XHMTL Rails
2.0

Not sure...
which direction
to take?

...how long it
will take?

...what the
process is?

...or what you
may need to do?

Ever felt a
bit like this?

Don’t worry

Here are a few
steps you can
follow to make
sure you get
it right

Chapter 1
Planning
makes
perfect
www.designbystructure.com

Think about
who will use the
website and
their needs

I want to buy
that product

I’ve just arrived
from Google-
what do you
do, can you
help me?

I just want your
phone number.
I hope its easy
to find

People choose
different ways
to get to their
destination
Website users
are the same

Produce a sitemap so
you know how content
will be organised &
how people will find
what they need

Sketch out pages to
show where specific
functions and content
will go

Check what you’ve
come up will work for
your audience

Chapter 2
Make it
look great
&
Easy to use
www.designbystructure.com

There are lots of
reasons websites
disappoint their
users

“it looks
“my website
doesn’t look
really
as good as my
functional”
printed materials”
“it looks
really “my online
sales aren’t
boring”
all that great”
“i can never
“its really
find what i'm
hard to
looking for”
navigate”

Mostly its because
the wrong people
were hired to
design them

BEWARE
design companies
who do software &
software companies
who do design

When someone
engages with your
website they are
engaging with
your brand

First
impressions
count!

Your website
should deliver a
great experience
for its users

Make sure people
feel like they are
in the right place

Now you’ve got
their attention
make it easy to
find stuff

Make sure the
visual language &
behaviour of your
site is consistent

If you want
a customer to
do something
Checkout
make it
obvious

Great design = credibility
Credibility = success

Chapter 3
Talk about it
Managing a web
project
www.designbystructure.com

People you work
with probably have
a strong opinion
about the website
you are building
****!
****!
****! ****!

Some want you to
stick a big button
on the homepage
promoting what
ME
they do
ME
ME
ME

You might be irritated,
you should definitely be
worried

Your website is
in danger
Design by committee
does not work
X

Take control
Engage people you
work with early in
the process

A bit of pain at the
start will save a
whole world of
pain later on :-)

Chapter 4
Building your
website
Don’t re-invent
the wheel
www.designbystructure.com

Don’t be a
guinea pig
(unless you have very
deep pockets)

Don’t get
seduced by
“sexy”
technology

Find some existing
web software you
can build on
Open
Source
Proprietary
Licensed

Make sure it ticks the
boxes for accessibility
and web best practice

Find some
people like you
that use it

Have a
chat with
them

Check it meets
your main
requirements

Make sure you
can customise
it to do exactly
what you want

Don’t over
complicate it
Break the project up into small
bits. Launch something sooner
rather than later

Make sure it
works before
launch!!

Don’t forget
The journalist who’s reviewing
your site probably uses a
nice shiny Mac

Chapter 5
Get found
in Google
AKA Search Engine
Optimisation (SEO)
www.designbystructure.com

SEO has nothing
to do with Wizards
or Black Magic

SEO has nothing
to do with putting
loads of stuff on
your website

Relax. SEO is all
about common
sense

Ask questions.
Research the terms people
use to search for the products
or services you have?
“Couch”
“Settee”
“Sofa”

Put these terms
in the right place
on your website

Make sure your
site has relevant
content
Classic sofa /
settee Upholstered Comfortable
in black velvet couch / sofa
Upholstered
in red cloth

Because you chose SEO
friendly software, search
engines will be able to
find you

To get higher up
the rankings you
need votes

A hyperlink from
another website
to your site counts
as a vote

High rankings
take time & effort
Be patient. Check
rankings, tweak content.
Build inward links.

If you want to talk to someone
that speaks your language
get in touch
Design by Structure Ltd
Unit 34 Jack’s Place
6 Corbet Place
London E1 6NN
t| 020 7247 2788
m| 07976 539 082
john@designbystructure.com
www.twitter.com/johngalpin
www.designbystructure.com
Good luck