Website Planning Checklist

1. Web Site Design Marketing Objectives
   • What is your primary objective with the site?
     • Establish and promote your businesses credibility.
     • Increased business exposure.
     • Describe your products or services.
     • Offer online transactions, purchase orders or how to buy products and services.
     • Provide customer service and support.
     • Communicating company identity or branding.
     • Decrease Print and Mailing Costs.
     • Compete on level terms with competitors.
   • What are your secondary objectives?
     • Make your site search engine friendly.
     • Generate repeat visitors.
     • Encourage visitors to recommend it to others.
     • Create an online community, send emails.
     • Offer a newsletter or member only section.
     • Encourage visitors to stay and visit many parts of the site.
     • How do you expect to use the site?
     • Will people find you by search engines or because you gave them your URL?
2. Target Audience
   • Who is your target audience?
   • Will they access your site via dial up or high speed connection?
   • What browsers and screen sized are used?What is your target audience looking for?
   • What questions are your customers constantly asking you?
   • What can you offer your customers that would save them time?
3. Web Site Design Look and Feel
   • Look at other sites to gather ideas of what you can do.
   • What features do you like of those sites best?
   • You need to decide on a color scheme or overall theme.
   • What image do you want your site to portray?
   • Home page options: A single page, matching overall design of remaining site or a flash intro?
   • Site width: fixed or fluid to match the viewers screen size.
   • Print and email page options.
   • Navigation and Menus – Single, Multiple, Dropdowns or dynamic?
   • Graphics and Photos -   Do you have electronic or preferred choices or look to us to provide you stock or custom photos?
   • Are you interested in animation graphics or movies?
   • Do we need to take photos of you, your staff, your services, or your products?
   • Do you have any vendor supplied photos or graphics you are authorized to use?
4. Logo and Branding
   • Do you have a logo?  Do you have a digital copy of it?
   • Do you need a logo or would a stylized typeset of your company name be sufficient?
   • Do you have a tag line or company brand to promote? How would you describe your business in one sentence?
5. Web Site Content
   • Do you have any existing written materials we can start from?
   • Do you have this information electronically?
     • Brochures
     • Client presentations
     • Customer letters
     • Information flyers
     • Case studies
     • Customer testimonial letters
     • Company resume or business timeline history
6. What menu categories make sense for you? Here are some common examples:
   • Home
   • Services: what are they
   • Product Available
   • Testimonials
   • FAQs
   • Forum
   • Document Repository
   • Blog
   • Members Section
   • Links or resources
   • About us
   • Contact us
7. Search Engine Optimization & Promotion
   • How will people look for you: by name, keywords, products services, etc.
   • What search engines will they be using:  paid or organic listings?
   • Reciprocal linking:  the more you have the better; vendors, collaterals and manufacturers.
   • Resource linking:  if you don’t offer it who does? Your resources are your customers also.
   • Submit to search engines and directories.
   • Monitor your ranking and modify your website based on your findings.
8. Web Site Technical Details
   • Have you registered a domain name?  If not, we can do that for you.
   • Hosting Plans:  which plan is best for you.
   • Do you have your site access information for domains and hosting if already acquired?
   • Control Panel Access:  E-mail setup, dns, applications
   • Visitor Statistics:  how to read and interpret the information provided.
9. Website Maintenance
   • When and how to update the site?
   • Who is going to make the changes?
   • What content will need updating?
   • Why to change pages or have dynamic content?
10. Project Timeline
    • What is your timing for this? Beginning and finishing?
    • Is your launch tied to a product or service being introduced?
    • Does your business depend on seasonal, social or financial timeframes?  

We have the experience and knowledge to provide your company with all the information you need to get you started.  Contact us for a free initial consultation at 815-223-1052 or 800-352-7018. 

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