Designing a website – Episode 1: Planning & site map!

And the planning that goes into it beforehand Before you get to those stages, but I think it’s just as Important and it’s just as important for you to See so I’m excited to plan along with you today, I’ve got my iPad got my Apple Pencil and let’s get going First off. Let’s take a Look at my current website as it stands. I guess So. This was designed back in…. I can’t remember now, if It was 2014 or 2015, but I just know that it was a while ago And so the design needs some updating.

I’ve changed my branding, Since then, slightly and also this website just doesn’t really fit to my needs anymore, It doesn’t really fit what I need from a website I used to write pretty Regularly, on a blog as well on my old website, Not in the past year or so But before then I was I’ve decided that I’m not going to be porting this blog over to my new website, Which, by the way, I’m going to Be building in Webflow, I guess it’s more of a Visual way to build a website, so you don’t actually need to know how to code it from scratch to be able to make it in Webflow And they have a really great CMS as well.

It seems really powerful. So I’m excited to try that out. My current website is built In WordPress – and they do have a way that you Can like bring all your WordPress posts over to Webflow, but I’ve just decided I’m not going to bother I’m going to like leave those in the past. There is a couple of posts: That I might transport over to my new blog that I’m going to Do which I’ll get into in a second but yeah For the most part, this Site is going to be completely revamped.

I want my new site to be a Little bit more flexible, I want it to do a few More things as well, The first thing is, I want It to be my content hub, This was kind of my idea. For the previous one, but it didn’t really turn out that way. It was mostly just the blog posts and links to my latest on the home page, but I want to be able to Have my articles on there podcasts on there blog posts on there and all be searchable? Together, so that, if you want to learn about a certain topic, I will be able to have a Page for that, with like this article, this blog Post, oh and this podcast that you should listen to on the topic So yeah.

The first thing: Is bringing all my content together cause right now? It Is just all separated out? The second thing is obviously Because I’m a designer, I need to have my portfolio on my website and it’s not only my design. Work that I want to have a new portfolio. I also want to have like a speaker’s page Like a portfolio of my public Speaking and workshop efforts to try and attract more of that, I am also planning on Starting to blog again, as I alluded to before, but this time on, a slightly different topic, I really want to write about the behind-the-scenes of my business So posts about like what it’s like to start up an LLC and working with an accountant income reports.

Perhaps Something I’m thinking of doing These things, I feel don’t Particularly fit with my YouTube blog, which Is more design-focused but they’re still things I want to put out there, So I feel like writing about Them will be a good fit, So that will go on my new website And then lastly, eventually I want to bring a store into this website Right now. My online store Is on a separate platform, It’s a completely Different brand as well, but in the future I want To bring that in and have it all in one space, I’m not going to worry About that for now, however, So we’re just going to focus On yeah the content and portfolio side of things, So with that in mind, Let’s start planning, And the first thing I’m going to do – is write down on this page.

Actually, I’m going to write content or hire me Cause. This is the two Frames of mind of like what people are looking to do, When they come to my website, as I see it, They’re either looking for Content to learn about something from me or they’re, like interested in hiring Me for a certain thing, With those in mind: let’s start planning what pages I’m going to Need as part of the site, The first one is obviously a home page.

I feel like I’m going to Want a page: that’s like a content hub, So I’m just going to write content That’ll, be perhaps that’ll be some Categories listed and like suggested to you Almost like the playlist that I have on my YouTube blog, but instead of just being articles, there’ll be Blogs and podcasts as well And then as part of content. I’r also going to need three different templates. Basically, I’m going to need audio article and written I’m sure you’re wondering right now how I became a designer when I can’t even draw a box neatly, but hey That’s how it works.

I’r also going to need my portfolio And in that I’m going to have like an individual project. Obviously I’m going to need A template for that as well Gon na add my speaking page in here as well. That I mentioned Then there’ll be the basics. That’s like an about page and a contact page too, probably Actually as part of contact. It would be a good idea for me to have a form on My website for my portfolio review series.

I think, Right now, my instructions Are for you to email me with a specific subject: Line and include the information you know, In order for me to review your portfolio in that Series that I do on YouTube, But not everyone uses The right subject line so it doesn’t go into Like the right folder in my inbox and not everyone, Gives all the information that I need as well? So I think, having some Sort of form on my website, where you can just fill in Your details and submit that will make the whole process a lot easier for everyone involved.

A page. That’s quite Highly-Visited on my website at the moment, thanks to a Article, that’s quite popular is where you can download My screen printing guide – Basically it just has the article and a form and that’s where you get The guide sent to you So a lot of people come Over from that article, I thought about having that Page as part of this new website, but what I think I’r actually going to do is have screen printing as a Category in my content here so it’ll be like part of this And that way the form Will be on that page for you to download and Also see any like articles or blog posts or Whatever that I’ve written about screen printing too So actually as part of this kind of in between here I should also put.

.., I’m just going to add it next to it anyway, Like a category page Content page is like the Home of all the content, and then a category page, is that playlist. I think where it’s the audio article written Thinking more about This contact page too, I think I’m also going to have like a freelance form submission. So if there’s a project that You’re interested in me working on with you, you can Fill this out with like information about the project, I’m also going to want Like a plain page, template that I can pull out whenever I need to for giveaways.

This is something that I like to do in the middle of logs every now, and then it’s just throw up a giveaway And to do that, I get People to fill in a form so that I can like pick the Winner, randomly from there So yeah Plain page that I can just duplicate whenever and make a new giveaway will be really helpful. Thinking about what else Is on my current website that I might want to bring over The only page that I really Am not considering here and not adding in is my newsletter page, So I just have a page about signing up for my newsletter.

I don’t think I’m going to do that because, to be honest, I haven’t been super regular with sending out a newsletter lately and I think, instead of having newsletters like the reason for people to sign up, I instead would rather have a form on each content. Category page that they can fill in There to get a certain, I don’t know: PDF opt-in, Something or other that I’ll create And then they’ll they Can get emails about that particular topic in general and they’ll also be added to my list.

If I do send a newsletter, I think that’ll be a better Way of going about it than having a dedicated newsletter page, I think I should really move this. I don’t know how to Move things in this app, so I’m just going to erase It and write it again, But I think home should be Seen as above all of these other things, Because my home page will Be the hub of everything, Perhaps some things won’t Be connected to home, like I’m, going to actually Remove giveaways from that, But everything else I think, will be coming from the home.

Page and the home page will be designed to lead You into the right thing With these two things: In mind, in particular, content or hiring me as the main thing that you’re looking for So that’ll, be the first Decision that I make someone make ( laughs ) Make someone make when they come onto this page. It’s kind of like this is the content stuff. This is the hiring me stuff, and these two pages are Kind of fitting, with both Now this seems like a lot of work right, Like that’s a lot of pages, That I need to design So to start with, to stop me from getting overwhelmed.

First, I’m actually going to just do an MVP of my homepage, So it won’t have all of these sub pages. It will just be a homepage that Links off to various things, So it needs to link off to my YouTube social media. I think I won’t have a Contact form even on it to start with I’ll, just have my email address, bio and maybe in place of building out a full Portfolio I’m going to have a link to my Dribbble on there and I will make sure I Update that a little bit cause, that’s also something I don’t do very often So this way people will Get access to my content.

They will know how to contact me. They will learn a bit about me and see a bit of my work, But without me having to Put in all the work of doing all these extra pages just yet So that means I can get my new site like up and running In designing this page I guess I’ll be able to develop a design system for It and kind of like a brand for my website as well That’ll make it easier to design these other pages And just in general, I Think it’ll be a good start to the project, ( laughs ).

So that is my very Messy plan for my website: It’s pretty simple, but it’s really good to Do this thinking about what you might need, rather than getting halfway through Like starting and then you know the project Keeps expanding from there, Especially this piece of figuring out what people are going to Be coming to your site, for, I think, is really important to get down. So if you have a website, Project that you’re working on, I really encourage you.

To do this step first, just to figure out exactly What pages are needed If you’re working with a Client you’re going to need to do this anyway, to Scope out the project and how much design work is Going to be involved for you, But it also just really Helps me to see it and to know what work is coming and I’ll be able to like tackle these section-by-section. I think Hope you found this Interesting to see, anyway – and that was useful in some way to you And that you’re excited Too, about this new series of mine redesigning my website, I’m very excited about it, and I’ve been talking about it for a long time, and I think that making articles about it is going to actually finally help me get it done, because I’m going to have you To keep me accountable All right, (, giggles ), That’s it for now Give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the next one – And I guess the next article will be the wireframing and possibly design of this MVP homepage.

So looking forward to seeing you then Bye,

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