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So you have decided it's time for a new
website. You have decided what the main purpose of your website will
be; now it's time to
create a website outline.
Do you remember writing those expository
essays back in school? The teacher usually made you turn in an outline
first, and then a week or so later, the entire essay was due? I always
thought it was an easy assignment because you already had the main
points laid out and all you had to do was fill it in with some meat and
you were done.
Well, a website outline serves the same purposes; it makes the rest of
your job oh-so-much easier!
What you need to begin
To create a website outline, you are first
going to need a list of good keywords to use on your website. A keyword
is a word or phrase that you think future customers will type into a
search engine in order to find your website. If you don't have a list
of keywords yet, you can brainstorm some on your own, but its always a
good idea to do a bit of research and see what people are really using
at the search engines.
You can research your own
keywords manually using http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com or you can
hire someone to do it for you.
Organizing
your keywords
In my opinion, the easiest way to organize
your keywords is using a
combination of a large whiteboard and a computer.
Use the whiteboard first to mind map what I think is a logical order
for this site. What buttons and links would you expect to find on the
home page? A link to the description of your services? A map to your
location with your phone number? A promotions page where you broadcast
sales? A testimonials page? A link to an onine store?
Then take the second tier pages and decide
what links and information should be on those. For example, your
services page might have a brief list of all of the services you
provide, with links to a page that give more information (maybe pricing
and ordering information) on that page.
Using
Word to organize the keywords
Once that is starting to look like it's got
a logical order to it, duplicate the site outline using Word
or Excel, just like an essay outline by indenting the tiers.
For instance, in this example, the main site keyword goes all the way
to the left and at the top. Each tier 2 keyword (the ones that are
links on the home page) are indented one tab to the right.
The tier 3 keywords are underneath the appropriate tier 2 keyword,
indented one more tab.
Make sure there is enough information in the
outline that you will be able to pick up your train of thought later
regarding what goes on what page.
Using
your site website outline
The brilliance of setting it up this way is that the document or
spreadsheet can be
saved and reviewed later, as well as added to and used as a reference.
Think of it as a digital blueprint for your website.
Every time I start on a new page on my webite, I check my outline. It
will show me at a glance what outgoing links should be on this page and
what the best keywords are to use so I don't have to do that work
again.
And when I get ready to add another page, it's easy to pick the best
ranking keywords because they are all right there!
Filling
in the meat - the easy part
The more detail you have put into your outline, the easier this will
be. Now that you have the main points and an idea of the pages you will
need, it is easy to go in and add a bit of meat onto each page. The
meat could be personal stories related to the topic (even business
owners should do this as it really does wonders to build trust with
someone you have never met before), statistics, tips your readers will
find useful or just a brief introduction on the topic.
I often find that once I have the outline
done, filling it in is as simple as having a conversation with one of
my customers. The necessary information just comes to mind and through
my fingers easily. And all because you were smart enough to create a
website outline.
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If
you liked this article, take a look at some of our other
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