Create Goals: ask yourself or your clients what you hope to accomplish with your site. This will help you focus and target your site. Your goals will determine the media and the look and feel of your site. Looking at other sites helps you determine your focus – base it on what your competition does or does not offer their users. Are there any special web features that you are interested in, like a contact form or a search feature?

• link the objectives to business goals. Objectives might be:
  • We will reduce phone calls related to frequently asked questions by 50% by putting the answers on the web.
  • We will increase email requests for job quotes through our Web site by 30% within the next year.

Design: based on the presentation and organization of your data, create a mock-up on paper or illustration with your image editing program. Your design should be consistent throughout the site, unless it serves a particular purpose. Navigation: your navigation should also be consistent, the user needs to know where there are in your site structure and hierarchy, be able to see where they were and easily find where they would like to go next.

Assets: Now you can gather or create your images, organize them and easily use them because they will be readily available. Be sure to coordinate your online and print media design strategies. They do not need to be precise, but should follow the same color scheme and/or metaphor.

Maintenance: Based on your site content and structure, set a schedule for updating your site, in addition to any product or service changes and incorporate your website into your existing marketing strategies.

If you’re not sure what use your site would be for your company or your audience, think like a consumer. You’re searching for a particular product or service, ideally a local or inexpensive solution, and you frequently use search engines to learn about a topic or just surf the ‘net. The internet is a great place to search, and a website will certainly answer more questions than a listing in the yellow pages. Think a little deeper about your product or service to determine what someone might look for on your site. Do you have a product to display images, dimensions, descriptions and prices for? Is it a service that justifies having an online gallery of work or list of quality products and procedures you use to provide that service?

Now that you have some ideas of what your audience would be searching for, think like the salesperson. Use your site to sell your product or service in a unique or impressive way to stand out amongst your competitors. This should get you started thinking about your site content and informing and selling to your prospective customers. From there, follow the plan above to create your site.