Colour Palette

I have been doing some colour palettes to decided which colour combination would be the best for the site, always remembering my target audience and the information display.

The last image is the actual mood board and colour palette from it, I will use only a couple of colours not all of them, and maybe mix them with the ones above.

Mood Board + Descriptive Words

I have put together a series of pictures relating to red wine. From this i'll be getting the colour palette for my  final design of the site. The mood board consist of grapes and cheese, which are usually enjoyed with a glass of red wine, also shown in the mood board.

I have also put together a selection of descriptive words relating to the theme of the site; Italian red wines.

Palate             Red                 Ruby            Rich         Full-bodied          Rustic               Mellow

Bouquet            Aroma            Smoked         Wood      Velvety                Earthy               Fruity

Musty              Ripe                Sharp             Smooth       Oak            Matured            Sweet

Aged              Flavour               Strawberries         Raspberries               Refreshing          Polish

Vanilla           Rose                Plum          Spices                   Pepper                 Dry             Vegetal

This descriptive words will help towards the SEO as the most used.

     

Personas

As part of the research I will be creating personas of whom might use the site, this is fictional but would help to meet the requirements and to produce the best service possible. Creating personas before building a site help to achieve the best situation possible as when the site goes live, it'll be a before user testing face of what I can expect from users. the personas will have requirements and hobbies, also certain time to go online and how much time they spend online.

 As the website is focus on wine, specially Italian reds my personas visiting the site would be more or less 2 different type of people, a everyday normal guy wanting to find more about wines and a wine connoisseur .

Persona 1

Name: Alan

Age: 30

Occupation: Banker

Hobby: Wine, Socialising, Sports, Cars

Time online: Mostly evenings

Time spend Online: 2/3 hours in the evening during weekdays

Knowledge of the internet: Intermediated 

Needs: Easy access to each region/ wine terminology / reviews by people about certain wines

Perfect site: Clean and user friendly with the right amount of information without having to read for hours

Persona 2

Name: Harry

Age: 50

Occupation: University Lecturer/ Wine connoisseur

Hobby: Reading, theatre

Time online: Everyday

Time spend Online: 1/2 hours a day

Knowledge of the internet: Beginner

Needs: User friendly/ clear information/ ability of make reviews

Perfect site: Clean and user friendly with reviews at the touch of a button

From this 2 personas I can see what the sites needs to meet and provide, with 2 very different people but looking at the same website for different information and present it slightly different to each others need.

Marketing the site

Marketing a new site required some time and strategies to get to the top of the search. SEO is an onsite marketing strategy refering to Search Engine Optimization, this will inlcude editing the HTML and content some times to get the right phrases and data in the search. Is important to have clean code to as a part of it will be easier to get ranked number 1. I have produce a list with some of the techniques to use with SEO

• clean code
• Alt Tags
• Context
• Key phrases
• Back linked
• Blog- Content update
• XML
• Site Map

this is some of the most important SEO onsite, there's many ways of marketing your site such as promoting your product on local sites, writting articles for other people, blogging and social networking such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked to mention a few.

Offsite marketing required promoting your new product or site on the streets, newspaper, magazines, TV or radio. this will be help by

• Posters
• Cards
• Billboards
• Business cards
• Offers

In the present time one of the most use technologies to promote new products or sites is social networking with the millions of people using everyday this site through their phones and at home is a good way to get to millions of people.

The Research

As part of the research I've been looking to different sites regarding wines, I haven't found yet a site to compared to what Im thinking to do, as all the other sites have a wider range of wines, not just red or whites but also from different countries, I think by having just red from Italy's in the site will focus more on Italian red wine lovers, which will bring more traffic to the site.

I have look at the following sites regarding layout and information provided to have an idea of how to improve and make the most of the site to produce the cleanest and user friendly site.

Dummies.com gives you a small list of some of the most popular Italian red wines, with small description of the grape which they made and the region they from, Its been written by Mary Ewing-Mulligan and Ed McCarthy. Its a good starting point as a research but not enough to stop just yet.
there also have written THIS about the top grapes types that Italian wines use and which region the grow best.

letstalkwine.com have a more broad selection of Italian red wine types, with a description of each wine according to their taste. This article was written by Daniel Manu

captainchang.com provide information not only red wines but also whites, he also points out the labelled types for Italian wines. Again as all the other sites he has description of the wines in more deep that the others, with taste and grape quality and also the region and label type.

Labels Types.

DOCG=Denominazione di Origine controllata e Garantita
This is the top label for a Italian wine, it means it was made by the traditional methods and grapes. It also means DOCG wines have to pass a taste test by the Government regulators.

DOC=Denominazione di Origine Controllata
This means the wine is what it says on the label, the wine must be produced by the traditional method and grapes.

IGT=Indicazione Geograficca Tipica
Designation for the quality of the wine that is NOT DOCG or DOC, this is because of the non traditional method or grapes use to produce it. A Region is mentioned somewhere in the label

Vino ti tavola is the lowest grade of wine with no interesting designations whatsoever.

The brief

I have been required to create a site to provide information to the public, this site will be mainly focusing on the marketing SEO part of it, so technically the back end. I have decided for my site to provide information about Italian red wines.

I will look at the types, which region there from, recommended to drink with, and possibly people will be able to write their own review about a particular wine. For this I have my own background regarding wines due to my part time job I know enough about red wines but still wanting to learn more the research will take place on the internet.