Layout Design Tool – Webflow

I was browsing around and ran across this tool, WEBFLOW. From what I could see for a beginner or team-oriented project it would be a very useful tool. I prefer a more free-spirited method in my own development. It is mostly a site builder. To export pages, you create you have to sign up for their yearly paid plans. Sorry, that is as far as I go. If I cannot export a test page to see if it works with my WordPress designs I do not think I will learn anymore. Per Webflow university it is possible to export to WordPress external domains but it has to be updated from Webflow, not from within your site. Just another website builder site … build first worry about SEO later deal.

How To Layout A Website

Process

The process of website development is a combination of steps. Each step has to be done in its own order of things or the entire process is lost. Rome was not built in a day, nor is website development. Plan to spend at least 6 months on the entire process.

  • Planning
  • Research
  • Analysis and Strategy
  • Domain Name Registration
  • Hosting
  • Design
  • Content Text
  • Graphics
  • Testing
  • Marketing

Planning

Everything starts with a good plan. “Fail to plan, plan to fail”. That is my favorite saying, a philosophy that should be followed in every venture you undertake. If you have never done this yourself it is best to right now hire someone to help you. Large design firms probably charge more than you are able to invest at this time. Your best option is to hire a freelance website designer. Most of them work cheap and often have more skills than your large design firm. They will also be more likely to provide you with a more one-on-one service than large firms.

Research

Find out what the competition is doing and what they are doing wrong. Study the marketability of your product or service. Who will your target audience be? Study the target audience and find out what their needs are. Get to know your own product or service better and see how you can offer better than your competition. You should start at this point by creating a list of keywords that people are using to find your products or services.

Analysis

Analyze all of the data you have collected from research. Put some numbers to it and see how your website business will do within the market.

Strategy

Using all of your research analysis modify your plan to include a strategy to achieve the desired goal of making your online business a success

Domain

The first physical step towards actually starting your website development is registering a domain name. This is an important step. The domain name you choose will ultimately be your brand. You can never change it. So choose wisely. It needs to be short and easy to remember. Your domain name has to be unique. It does not hurt to have a name that brings to mind what your product or service is when people hear it.

Hosting

The next step is hosting. Where will your computer files for your website be stored and accessed from? There are many on the market. I recommend Ipower as their plan is all-inclusive and they do offer higher-end options. Contrary to what some say you should start with the more economical option. You do not need a $10,000 host for a website getting 10 visitors a day. You can

Design

The process of building a functional website requires it to follow certain standards you will find on every website fo the internet. It needs a structured layout that includes navigation, structure, text content, colors, and graphics. All of this needs to be assembled in such a way to catch your website visitors’ attention within seconds or they will go away.

Content

This step starts with keyword research which you should already have a list started. Build on this list and use tools like Ubersuggest to find out how many people are using your words on other websites. Find words with less competition but with some people using them to search for your products or service. All of the most direct words will have very high competition. So unless your website has strong factors making it important you will not be found. For a new website development starting out you should focus on long phrases that people will use to find you.

Testing

Once you have completed all of these steps you will need to test them. Look at the website as your customers would. Is it interesting? Is it easy to navigate? Does all of the payment processes function correctly? You can do this on a liver server at this point because no one is going to find your website yet. That way you can send friends to your new website and have them test it for you too.

Deployment

The final step to actually getting new potential clients to your website is letting search engines know who you are and where to find your website. The best is to start with submitting your website to Google and Bing. Be sure to include a site map. After that, you can use other off-page SEO methods to let the world know you are ready with the doors open.

Maintenance

This is a step in web development is where you will need to monitor how your website visitors are responding. Improve upon what they like. Google and Bing both have excellent monitoring tools for this absolutely free.

Freelance Website Designer

The best thing to do when starting a website for your business is to find someone like myself that makes a living from selling products via the Internet. My story is a long one but to make it short in 2001 I had to move from my home in the USA to Indonesia due to problems with my Indonesian wife and immigration. I could not work in Indonesia since I was American so I had to survive by selling products on the Internet. It is now 21 years later and I am thriving by my internet skills alone. I presently manage 20 websites for various businesses I operate. To name a few:

  • https:////glenn-furniture.com I sell furniture built here in Indonesia.
  • https://teak-out.com I also sell teak garden furniture wholesale built in Indonesia.
  • https://tiffanylampsforsale.com I am a reseller for Meyda Lighting in New York. I sell and they drop ship the products for me.
  • And Glenn Website Design I offer my skills developed and used for over 20 years as a freelance website designer. I have built a lot of websites over the years.

All of these sites are highly ranked on Google. You can find me easily by searching for Glenn Madden and any related business term. If you found this web page then you have discovered a recent trick I could forget more 1st page placements on the search engines. You can spend thousands of dollars building the most beautiful website imaginable. But if it is not listed on the first page of the search engines it is nothing more than a very expensive calling card.

Web Development Services

There are thousands of cheap ways to get a website built so it is no surprise that website business for me is not the best income source. There are freelance website designers in India that will do the same websites I do for even less, and they do a good job if you can communicate what you want to them. BUT most do include hosting. Everything costs extra. The packages Glenn Website Design offers include everything you need for 1 year including hosting and SEO. You will not find anyone offering that good of a deal. Glenn Website Design offers the best deal to build a business.

Free Online Websites

This is the worst possible action you can take. Most free online websites come with a catch. Most of them make their money by posting advertisements on your new website. Not only are you not getting that income they are also sending some of your potential clients to other stores. I have only found ONE free website builder that I could recommend should you choose that route. Google offers https://www.blogger.com/ as a free service and has no catch. The only drawback is your website address will not start with your business name. You also will have to worry about the low lives out there who will buy your business name or brand website address direct and hold it for ransom.

Do It Yourself Website

If you have the time and some skills to start with and are good at writing content this is the way to go. No one knows what you want better than yourself. But do not be fooled by the free easy websites or the online website builders and think that is all you need. Here is a shortlist of what you need to even think about DIY websites.

  • Research
  • Domain Name Registration
  • Hosting
  • Content Text
  • Graphics
  • Marketing

Research

Each one of these comes with its own complex set of rules to follow for your business website to be successful. Research is the primary one. It requires you to spend many hours researching the competition, researching what people looking for your product might search for. You should do this before even registering a website name. Because the name becomes your brand.

Domain Name Registration

The important thing to know is that hosting and site registration is not related. Many hosting companies will offer registration services at slightly higher rates than a registrar company. But in reality, there are only a few legal register entries that govern the entire Internet. A domain registrar sometimes called a DNS registrar (short for domain name server), is a business that sells domain names and handles the business of registering them. Domain names are the main address a website uses on the web—they’re the thing that usually starts with www and most often ends with .com. I personally use Moniker as my registrar.

Hosting

Hosting is done by companies that have huge banks of computer power. Again the field is a jungle of competition. From best price to best service they compete frantically to get new customers. Some of the companies will offer you the lowest price and come highly rated because they do offer high-quality services. But what to watch out for is the services included in the package you are buying. Many hosting companies make a fortune charging extra for every detail. I personally have used the hosting company for 20 years Ipower Web because they have an unbeatable deal that is all-inclusive of everything you need.

Content

The content includes writing the text, layout, and graphics.

Marketing

Marketing starts with the very first step. As you do your research you are also looking to include SEO in the design of your website. If the website is found by major search engines easily half of your marketing work is already done for you. If you are starting a new business are even an old one running a news release is always good. Most online new agencies include in-page linking. There is a lot more that could be said about marketing but that is an article all of its own.

Ideas For Website Layout

In the past ideas for website layout grid, basics would have followed a fairly simple traditional format with each section tied to limited use.

  • Header – would contain logo, simple navigation bar, and company banner.
  • Sidebar / s – this is where traditionally you would have the site’s nav bar and possible advertisements or promotions.
  • Content – the content would be 50% or more text-based with an article and photos about your products and services.
  • Footer – this is where you would have your address and simple contact info.

Mobile-First Website Layout Design

With the recent trend toward mobile-first design, old-school layouts are going extinct with the dinosaurs. Most designs are now moving towards blocks that are responsive and very to the point. Also, CSS for website layout is very important. Large fonts and graphics fill the screen. Very simple direct-to-point messages that can easily be downloaded and read on a smartphone screen.

The header for most website layouts now follows a similar style of logo top left, menu bar top right, and a full-page splash screen in most cases static but often includes animation or video.

Sidebars are still a necessary requirement on websites with lots of sub-content for example shopping websites where you cannot include all the navigation in the header drop-down menus.

Content

The content should start in short blocks of text with a nice background either color or a graphic. This allows for a nice flow of mobile-first presentations. The best is 3 or 4 column blocks that present your company’s message of what you sell and why you are the best. Next, you should have some presentation that is responsive but fill full-screen width to also come across on desktops with a strong clear message of what the website is about.