Bond
& Bond design
WebSite Planning Worksheet
The most important
part of getting an effective website online is the planning that goes into
it before the design process even begins.
This worksheet is intended for those who are planning to create their first
site - but equally applies to anyone planning to update or redesign a website.
Please feel free
to print this page and use it in your planning.
You can contact us anytime if you need any assistance: bond@bond-design.com
or +61 03 55 682 939
Overview
What
is the purpose of the site?
Decide in order of importance which of the following you wish to do - a good
site will be clear in its purpose so not too many should be chosen.
- Serve the needs
of existing clients
- Explain your
products and services
- Bring in new
clients to your business
- Take online
orders
- Provide information
for your staff
- Other
Who do you want
to visit your site?
- Who is the primary
audience you site is aimed at?
- Who might be
looking for your site/services/products?
- Who might be
interested if they reach your site accidentally?
What
will you offer on your site?
- Company Information
- Details of your
services
- Product Listings
- Online ordering
- Online support
for existing customers
- Discussion/bulletin
boards
- Applications
chat/interactive support
- Extensive Links
How
do you plan to bring visitors back to your site?
- What will be
useful enough to lure them back?
- What fresh content/regular
news are you likely to have?
How
do you plan to market the site to bring in visitors in the first place?
- Submissions
to: Search Engines, Directories, Industry-Specific Directories
- Reciprocal Linking
with Others
- Link exchange/banner
ads
- Paid banner
ads
- Paid preferential
search engine listings
- Internet Press
Releases
- Marketing in
Newsgroups/via E mail
- Business cards,
Letterheads etc
- Offline media
advertising
- Mail shots,
Flyers
- Information
at your place of business
How
would you define success for this site?
Design
and Development
What
will you call the site?
- Do you have
an existing domain name?
- Is your business
name available as a domain name?
- If not are you
able to come up with a good alternative?
- Are you planning
on a .com, .net, .org or .ie name? Or another suffix or number of those?
What
will your visitors look for?
What keywords or
phrases do you think clients, and potential clients, might use to find your
site? (List as many as you can think of)
How
do you want your site to look?
- Do you have
a preference for colours?
- Do you have
existing artwork? eg logos, photos, items used in brochures etc
- Will you need
new graphics created? What sort?
- List 3 or 4
sites you like and say why you like them
- List 3 or 4
sites you do not like and say what you dislike about them
- Rate the sites
of 3 businesses similar to yours - stating clearly what you like and dislike
about them.
What
sort of text content are you planning?
Will
you need mainly short pages or do you have a large body of text based information
to impart?
Will
you need audio?
Will you need
video?
Will you need
a form or forms?
- Just a contact
form
- Extensive forms
on many subjects
- Specialised
forms such as assessment/application forms
- Forms which
are used to transmit secure information
- E-mail Auto
responders
Site
Hosting
How
are you planning to host your site?
- Hosted on another
site? (www.othersite.com/yoursite)
- Purchasing a
Domain Name? (www.yoursite.com)
- Hosting by the
same ISP where you have a dial-up connection
- Hosting by a
specialist hosting company.
- Don't know yet
Do you need
several different e-mail addresses?
eg. yourname@yoursite.com, info@yoursite.com, sales@yoursite.com
Building
the Site
Will
the site be developed in house?
- Is there already
someone in house with the necessary expertise?
- What amount
of training and/or time away from others duties would this person (or these
people) require initially?
- What is the
cost of this time/training?
- If this person
runs into difficulties is their someone you can call on for assistance?
Will
the site be out sourced to a web developer?
- Have you chosen
a developer?
- Does the developers
previous work impress you?
- Have you contacted
previous customers of the developer to see how satisfied they were with the
overall service they received?
Who
will be responsible for gathering information and getting it to the developer?
- Consider getting
a team together specifically for this purpose
- Appoint ONE
person to liaise between the team and the developer
Who
will review ongoing progress on the site as it is developed and have the authority
to approve it?
Who will sign
off on the completed project?
Maintenance
and Updating
How
often will the site need to be updated?
- Will some sections
need more regular updating?
- Do you want
to add syndicated content which automatically updates?
How
do you plan to update content?
- Do you need
forms/templates to allow individual sections to be maintained/updated?
- Do you need
a backend for easy updating with little technical knowledge?
- Are you planning
to update the site using proprietary software - such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver?
- Will training
be required in the use of this software?
- Will updating
be done in house or via a maintenance contract?
What
about background maintenance tasks?
- Regular checking
of internal and external links
- Search Engine
status and resubmissions
- Checking the
competition?
- Overseeing content
sourcing, editing and approval
Cost
Initial
Costs
- Design and Development
- Domain registration
- Hosting set
up
On Going Costs
- Maintenance
and updating
- Hosting
- Additional development
costs if adding to site