Developing a new web space… my top tips!

The Ruby Orchard’s new online space has been up and running for three days.  The process of developing a new website has been a brilliant learning experience for me, I had no idea I would need to consider so many factors.

So, if you are ready to design a new online space for your business or blog, here are my top tips:

1. Choose a designer that gets you and gets what you want!  Look at their portfolio of work, if you like what they do then that’s a great start.  Nicola Tweed’s portfolio showed fresh, clean, white, uncluttered and easy to navigate sites.

2. Look at lots, and I mean lots, of other websites! Save them and show your web designer the aspects you like about each.  Keep revisiting these during the design process to check the bits you like are being established into your site.

3. Have a brief and make sure it is achieved in your end result.  My brief was to ensure our blog and blog posts were a central feature of our site.  I wanted site visitors to be able to browse and select articles from our blog with ease without having to scroll through post after post.  Nicola created categories, menus and page grids to satisfy this brief.

4. Ask your web designer to teach you and email tutorials.  Nicola even sent me video clips showing how to edit, update and keep the website running.  This has enabled me to take control of the site from day one and not feel that I cannot update it myself.

5. Selecting your colour palette, graphics and fonts can make or break the sites overall feel.  Cluttering a site with too many fonts and images and not keeping your colours uniform throughout the site can leave it looking untidy.  Your web designer should be able to assist with putting these together and advising you where to get great graphics from. Have a read of Nicola’s post about the importance of good graphics.

6. Websites are also viewed on tablets and smart phones, you must consider what your page is going to look like on an a variety of devices.  Testing this ‘mobile responsiveness’ and amending accordingly is essential for a successful site launch.

We’d love to hear what your favourite parts of our site are and what you would like to see on it.  We are busy now working on the online shop… we’ll keep you posted so you don’t miss our grand opening!