Step 1 - Planning your site
The first step in creating a website is the most important and perhaps the most difficult. You have to decide what to do. It's not enough, you see, to know you need a website. You have to think about why.
Too often, companies simply hire someone to build something similar to what other companies have. And while they may end up with a workable website, they miss an opportunity to really move their business and waste some money in the process.
It's a phenomenon Martha Brockenbrough sees all the time in her Seattle consultancy, where educating clients is a full-time job: "Often, a client's first question is 'How much is this going to cost?' But the real question is, 'What do you want this website to do?' What do you want it to do for your business?"
"I primarily work with very small businesses," Brockenbrough explains. "And they usually have no idea what a website can do. They just feel like they should have one. But that's the biggest mistake you can make! You should have very clear goals for what the website can help you achieve."
And small businesses aren't the only ones blundering: Corporate giants are just as likely to stumble through their Internet strategy. Ask Jeffrey Veen, whose consulting firm Adaptive Path works with clients large and small.
"The first question I ask any client is 'Why do you have a website?'" Veen says. "I ask that question and sometimes there's just dead silence. They can't answer it beyond 'We have to have a website. Our competition has a website.
So whether you're launching a new site or rethinking an old one, you should start with some provocative questions about why you have a website in the first place.
Ask yourself:
The answers will form the basis of your Internet strategy. Together, business needs and user needs will guide all your decisions. And if you answer these questions well, everything else—honestly, everything else—will fall into place.
