February 14th, 2008 by VPA
What’s the purpose of your website?
Is it meant to be primarily a sales site or is it meant to be purely informative? Is it a promotion for yourself?
What Do You Want It To Do?
This question is possibly the most overlooked aspect - but also the most fundamental. Exactly why will your website exist? What will it accomplish? What is your goal?
What Who Why Where How
Your website tells someone instantly what it’s all about. That’s why it’s there on the web …
What : What’s it about? Are you advertising something? Announcing the availability of a service? Giving information on a specific subject?
Who : Who are you? Are you an expert? An agent?
Why : Why is this website here? What is the specific reason why visitors should read through your site.
Where : If you’re selling your services, where are you? Is this website aimed at redheads in Coolangatta? Are you offering local services or global?
How : How does the reader use the information in your website? If you are selling books, how can we buy one? If you are a musician how do we hear you/buy your products? If you are a teacher how do we attend your classes/purchase your manuals?
Whatever it may be, you must have a specific purpose for the site. Not ten, but one. Start by getting a pen and paper and writing down a list of the things that you want your website to accomplish. Study them carefully. You must decide your purpose from that list, so place the items you have listed in order of priority.
(If you can’t decide priority, take the list and refine it further. Mark each item as being vital or valuable. If you don’t know how an item qualifies, it’s probably not vital.)
So get your basic layout ready. Write a list of your pages and start putting the content together. You have to get a lot of information across with very few words — and you have to write it like you’d speak it. That sounds really simple but you’re usually not taught to write conversationally. To make sure, read your stuff out loud. If it doesn’t make sense when you say it, it’s not conveying any information.
Tags: , layout
Filed under: First Steps