Starting a new website? You need a plan, but how do I do this? I’ve broken this wonderful article* out into a series of posts so you can concentrate of each of the essential areas into how you plan your new website.
Part 1: Website Layout and Wireframes
Before starting with any kind of development, you need to plan your website by doing research on the following topics:
- What its purpose/goal will be: The most important factor of every website is called a conversion – the moment that your visitor is converted to a paying customer (by buying an item from you), newsletter subscriber, social media follower.
- Who the target audience is: The most common mistake is when site owners think that everyone is their target audience, which is rarely the case – if you plan an e-commerce store for women’s dresses, then the tone of your website doesn’t need to appeal to men, unless it’s them you plan on buying most of the time.
- Who the most typical customer is (also called a Persona): This helps the copywriter write text as if it is directly speaking to the most typical customer, which will be — among all visitors — most susceptible to persuasion. And you need to persuade them to buy. Preferably in the first couple of seconds.
All these points are very important since they set the foundation of all your website related activities. And there’s nothing technical about them, it doesn’t even involve WordPress for that matter. Do your homework – plan properly.
Layout and wireframes
Once you have all this written down, it’s time to plan the layout of each page on your website. This is a process, also known as wireframing. Its purpose is to brainstorm about which element should be on a particular page, what the purpose of that element is and how high (or low) it needs to appear on that page.
A rule of thumb is that every element should convey one of the 6 principles of persuasion(explained in the video below). Yes, you want need to persuade your visitors to convert. They don’t have much time, so better make every element count!
Once you see this video, you’ll immediately know why most websites have elements like call to action, features & benefits, testimonials, reputable company logos,…
You do not need any kind of fancy software for this part (although I recommend Sketch if you insist), a piece of paper or a whiteboard will do just fine, which is why you shouldn’t obsess over details at this point – done is always better than perfect!
*thank you to Tomaž Zaman at Codeable for writing this article!
