Building a Website

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So many things come into play when building a website. Forethought to the layout of the sight before actually building is an essential headache saver and usually results in creating a better looking, more organized site that people are more likely to come back and visit.
If you plan on hiring a web designer, going through the following process will help you better communicate to the web designer, what you want them to create for you and can get you a product that you will be happier with.

Who is the audience?
This is the most important question to answer. What type of visitors are you trying to attract? Understanding this will help determine the entire layout.
If your target audience is senior citizens, you would want the font to be larger and an easy color to read.

What type of image are you trying to convey?
Once you have figured out WHO you are trying to attract, figure out what impression you want them to get when they come to your site.
Should the site be professional or colorful and fun?

What should the color scheme be?
While blue and white make a great combination for a professional looking business site- keep in mind that you want a site that isn't going to look like every other cookie-cutter site out there as well.
COLORS.IMAGES.LAYOUT.
These are the first things a person coming to your site is going to see. If these don't capture their attention, they may not even stay long enough to read what your site is offering them. There are some great color combination. Artistic color charts are a great way to determine what colors combine well. Take a look at some of the color systems you might consider using

What type of information is going to be displayed on the site?
Just because someone likes the colors on your website, doesn't mean they are going to stick around for very long if the information offered on the site is either not useful or just plain boring. When it comes right down to it, the actual content offered on a website is considered to be more important than anything else.
The information should be relevent and interesting to the audience you are trying to attract. Unless your audience is children or industry specific, the content should be written for about a third grade reading level. This helps ensure that the general public will be able to read and understand what is written on your site.

What should the layout look like?
Unless you are going for the chaos look, the layout of a website should be easy to follow. Someone browsing through your site shouldn't be left wondering how to get back to a page they wanted to further view. Having a clear layout design can help bring repeat visits to your site.
Another thing to keep in mind is that not everybody uses the same internet browser or has the same screen resolution. The simple layouts are less likely to suffer the effects of various browsers and screen settings. The biggest example of this can be seen in the growing trend of online browsing with a cell phone device. A heavy graphic, complex site may not even be accessible with the technology available to some people.
While someone on a cable internet might be able to pull up a web page in fractions of a second, the neighbor across the street on a dial-up modem, (about 13% of users in the US are still on a dial-up modem), might take minutes to pull up the same site, while the college student using a cellphone might not be able to access the site at all because it is not web 2.0 compliant.

more to come....
Looking to build your own site? Get started here Everything you need to create a website on your own.
Looking for someone else who can build a website for you? See a list of several web designers and developers