Anyone who has had an experience in web designing will tell you that web design is not just coming up with the kind of website that interests you as the webmaster and launching it online. On the contrary, it is a comprehensive process with several stages and it involves incorporation of every major player in any online business in order to enjoy any success. This means having the needs of the audience and the demands of search engines in mind while at the same time, balancing between the costs and the site quality. This article takes you through the four major processes of designing any website.

The first stage can be called style over substance stage which literally means putting style over substance. It is designing a site that will be appealing to the eyes and one that anyone would want to look at whether a professional or just a blogger. It can involve the use of Flash on the entire site or incorporation of pretty drop down menus or JavaScript mouse over effects.

The second stage is the designing for online visibility stage that happens around 4-5 months after launching the site. It is usually at this stage where the realities of the online market businesses start dawning on the webmaster. This stage incorporates the realization that the website goals are not being met, the traffic flow is not good and the site is not being indexed by search engines or being included in major directories despite the marketing strategies used. At this stage, one usually has the choice of hiring a functionality expert to analyze the site’s functionality or a professional online marketer. Rarely will webmasters go for the former settling for the latter. Unfortunately, the professional marketers will not tell you when there is a problem with your site’s functionality: if they did, they would go out of business anyway. Once the webmaster has exhausted all the options and there is no change, they realize that it is time to try a new approach which takes them to the third stage.

The third stage is called designing for your audience and it involves hiring a usability expert to analyze the potential problems and recommend available solutions, after realizing that the problem is failure to design an effective site. It also involves bringing in a search engine marketing expert to help create search engine friendly templates and web designs. Hiring such an expert earlier in the design process can save you lots of money in terms of marketing.

Site redesign is the last stage of the web design process. After the usability and search engine experts have done their analysis and given their recommendations, the web designer sets out to redesign the site while incorporating the proposed solutions. The site is rewritten in a search engine friendly way while having the end users in mind. This results in more search engine visibility which translates into success for the website. It is worthwhile to note that successful websites are always based on target audience needs and not on personal preferences.