Let's begin with the objectives and goals of your site.  Start out by thinking about what you want your site to do.  Are you passing along textual information to people?  Will you be selling products or services?  Are you advertising your business?  Will your site be small, like an extended phone book ad, or large and involved, including e-commerce, contact forms, and/or numerous pages of information?  Think all of these questions through carefully.  Think not only of your business as it exists now, but also as it could be in a global marketplace.

Along with your goals and objectives, think about who the audience will be for your site.  Who are the people you want to attract to your site?  What language(s) do they speak?  Are there technical terms they understand or don't understand?  Why should they come to your site; what does it offer to them? Even if your business is a local service business, it may be of use to people outside of your area.  For instance, if you own a limousine service or provide business copying or shipping services you may initially think only in terms of your local market.  But someone who is planning to travel into the area may also be interested in making arrangements to use your services while they are here.  So, ask yourself the following questions: Would your service be of use to those traveling into the area?  Would people be willing to travel to visit your storefront?  If your site is geographic area specific (like a mortgage company or insurance agency only licensed in certain states), be sure to state that on every page of your site.  I say every page because someone may come off of a search engine to an internal page and not hit the front page of your site.  Why should you put that information on your site?  Because nothing is more frustrating than searching a site, finding the service you want, and then finding out that the company doesn't serve your area.  Oy.

Okay, so you've established your goals and thought about your audience, now you need to think about the site content and needs.  At this point you're not  looking for the actual design, just a rough idea of how it will look, how it will work, what it will contain, and how people will use it. This is so that you can establish what you will need to execute that plan.   Now, you might ask, "Well, why wouldn't I just wait and do this when I start into design?"  You certainly can do that.  Honestly, some people do these things in different order. For instance, some people build their whole site and then go searching out a hosting company to meet their needs.  That approach works best for those with some experience in the area; those who know what the pitfalls can be, and what questions to ask.  But my suggestion is that you make some determinations now about your site so that you reduce the chances of getting halfway through and finding you don't have something you need.  If you're ready to do some basic planning on site content, then grab yourself a notepad or anything you can scribble on and let's go.  

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