Too often online tutorials only show you a small portion of what is needed to complete a thing, whether it be a logo, taking pictures or in my upcoming series case, a website.
I plan to change that and would like to take you through my journey of over the past year of me creating a website from its inspirational origin all the way through seeing it being designed in my moleskine, polished in Photoshop, developed into HTML and then into WordPress and finally into what I am doing to run the website since I launched it a couple weeks ago.
Upcoming Series Outline
This is roughly chronological view of how I, a one-person shop, did this site. This order will be different when working with more than one person because things like design and content can be done in tandem.
Site Strategy
Where the idea begins and steps take place to formalize the idea into a concrete project
- Inspiration
- Site Goals
- Personal Goals
- Brainstorming
- Identify Target Users
- Profile Target Users
Content Strategy
Discovering and organizing the site’s content
- Listing Potential Content
- Categorizing and Organizing Content
- Content Sitemap
Abstract Design
Take the site from sketches to polished mocks
- Design Inspiration
- Moodboard
- Wireframes
- Mocks
- Beginning Logo Design
Technology Strategy
List the various applications and services needed to setup and maintain the website
- Foundational Technology – Stuff required to setup the site i.e. host, CMS, email, etc
- On-site Technology – Stuff used to on the live site i.e flickr for photos, twitter, etc
- Off-site Technology – Stuff used to maintain the website or provide metrics i.e. email marketing manager, site analytics, etc
Concrete Design
Turn the photoshop mocks into an HTML website
- From PSD to HTML
- Javascript Libraries
- Finalizing Logo Design
Technology Implementation
Setup a working website
- Install CMS
- Convert HTML to CMS templates
- Add On-site Technology
- Add Off-site Technology
Content Development
Replace dummy content with real content
- Write site articles
- Take pictures needed
- Add articles in CMS
- Cross-link articles
Launch
It’s go time, baby
Maintaining the Website
Growing and marketing the website.
- Site Analytics and Diagnostics
- Content Goals
- Develop a Content Posting Calendar
- Social Media
- Marketing
Growing the Website
Learning how to adjust and make intelligent site iterations
About the Website
Now that I’ve properly teased you with all that I plan to show, I guess I better tell you about the site we are going to be following throughout its journey.
Capture Gwinnett is a county guide website where residents of Gwinnett County, GA can find information about things within the county such as parks, restaurants or other locations. It also provides the residents with news and events to keep abreast of what is going on within their county. The site has in-depth guides to help residents do things like finding good restaurants in Gwinnett and non-residents find stuff to do with the Guide to Gwinnett.
It will be a long ride to follow the journey of this website, but it should be a good one full of lots of advice to help you to get comfortable with doing something similar and to hopefully avoid some of the mistakes I made. I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed or to follow me on Twitter to stay best informed. My goal is to write one post a week in this series, but I am trying to maintain the other site as well, so no promises.
I unlocked the Delver achievement on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim! http://t.co/WLF670U1 20 hrs ago