This is a very simple and easy to understand user guide for people that have absolutely no experience in website planning. It intends to answer some of the main questions that you may have and will hopefully prepare you for that first meeting with your web designer. There is a download link at the bottom of this article.
It covers the following topics:
What is Your Website About?
A nice simple question but one that will impact upon everything else you do.
Segment, Target and Position
Every market, no matter how small, has multiple segments with one or more unifying characteristics. The art is to identify those you want to target and then position your site in such a way that they respond to it positively.
Market Research
Unless you are first to market you will be competing with other websites for people’s eyeballs and loyalty.
Forums, Blogs and Niche Social Networks
Have a look around the social media sites that cater for your target audience and see what people are saying about their current providers, both positive and negative.
Choosing a Domain and Hosting
You’ll find a warehouse’s worth of content online offering advice and guidance about choosing a domain name, but to be frank it’s not that hard. The difficulty lies in finding one that is actually available!
Structure and Content
A little bit of planning up front will become a major time save further down the line so before you dive in to coding your site sit down with a pen and a paper!
Download
You can follow this link to download the Website Planning Guide (PDF, 800 kb)
