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Purpose

Be precise as you define the purpose of your web site. The planning process must include careful consideration of the reasons to create the site. It is not enough to state that the web site should make money, or that it should be profitable, or that it should provide excellent customer service.

A clearly defined purpose will help the rest of the planning process as the audience is identified and the content is developed. Don't even think about hiring a web designer until can define the purpose of your site in one sentence. If you have to go into lengthy explanations, you have more refining to do.

So what's the purpose of your website?

' To inform?
' To build a community?
' To reduce the cost of doing business?
' To generate and prequalify sales leads?
' Market research?
' To reach a bigger audience with your message?
' To carry out e-commerce?
' To entertain?
' To sell advertising space?
' To brand your business or your product?
' To create buzz?
' To establish trust?
' To reduce paperwork, printing, and mailing costs?
' To find new employees?

Audience

Defining your audience is an essential step in the website planning process. Your audience is your customer. They will be visiting your the website for a specific reason and it is imperative to know exactly what they are looking for when they come to your site. Your audience should have an effect on the features, functionalities, technologies, and overall flow of your site.

As you define your audience consider their web experience, age, interests, their browsers, etc. If your audience is the teenage market, your website will look very different than a website created for baby boomers. Taking into account the characteristics of the audience will allow a valuable website to be created that will deliver the desired content to your target audience.

Content

Website content has two audiences, your site visitors and the search engines. Content is not filler material. As you develop content you are not just adding words to a page to fill real estate. In essence, you are organizing materials according to your audience's needs. It is content that brings your visitors back over-and-over again.