PD Martin's Blog

Bringing together this website has been a significant achievement and I thought it only fitting that my first blog should cover my new website. For anyone involved in the web business, you know how long it can take to build a new site.

My first task was to think about the website specification. This was quite an informal, short document for me, but obviously with a large, corporate website the spec can be a massive document and must be extremely detailed. My spec covered the new site structure, what I was (and wasn’t) looking for in the design, the website functionality/areas and what I needed from the site’s content management system (CMS).

For the design, I set up a competition at 99designs.com. On this website you post your project, and designers and developers within the community submit a mock-up or two. I was lucky enough to get some great designs, and after much deliberation I went for the design you see on this website. Thanks to Aaron Snowberger for the great design!

Next was the development or back-end of the website. I wanted a CMS so I could add my own content, images, etc. whenever I wanted to. Plus I wanted to expand on the functionality in the old pdmartin.com.au, adding new features to the front end (e.g. a video section, blog, etc.) and to the back-end (e.g. email notification when I answer a reader’s FAQ). This amazing work was done by Gillian Ramsay. Thanks, Gillian!

Next was the content. Handy thing about being a writer – I can write my own content! I was able to use some of the existing content, but also made sure I updated it and added new content as necessary.

The final step was bringing my content into the CMS and testing the website. This process actually took a couple of weeks, partly because it came right in the middle of my final few weeks on the first draft of book five, Kiss of Death.

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