It’s important to know why you’re building the site. Is it for sales or marketing? Is it a tool for communication or an online brochure? Do you want to sell products through the site, or just educate consumers about them? Do you want to increase membership in your organization, or offer Web-based benefits to current members? Do you want visitors to email you? Call you? Subscribe to a newsletter? Knowing your goals will help focus your ideas for the site.

What am I trying to sell or promote?

Even if you don’t like the idea of selling yourself, it’s what we all do, every day, if we want to be successful. Don’t be afraid of sales and marketing. Finding the answer to this question will determine what are the most important themes of the site, what to name the buttons, and the tone to use when writing the content.

What is our website’s business model and how are we unique?

Even if you have an AWESOME idea – you should develop ideas for an advertising or subscription revenue model or some fundamentals of it.

Who is our target demographic and what will they search for?

To help us an agency understand your needs, can you describe your target audience in terms of socio-economic profiles;gender;geographical location; Planning for the search in your user’s mind can save you from retrofitting for it later. How would YOU search? How would your mother search? How would your grandmother search?

What will the information architecture be like? What are the important top level keywords?

There needs to be balance between information architecture for usability and keyword information architecture for findability (SEO).

What are the components to getting a website up and running?

1. Design & Development: The architecture of the site needs to be built. An appropriate look and feel must be designed. The copy needs to be written and any additional tools such as online forms, shopping carts and audio clips need to be added.
2. Hosting: Just as you might rent office space, your Web site needs to be hosted somewhere so people can reach it.
3. Upkeep: Once live, a good site continues to post fresh material, giving people a reason to return.

What content do I need to build the site?

First, create an outline around the themes you want to promote. Second, remember that each line of the outline is a page that needs content–text and images that will help educate your visitors. The images may include a logo or photos of people or products. Poor quality photos or bad clip art can make the most attractive site look amateurish; sometimes no photos can be better than poor ones.

Who will be supplying copy for the site?

Would you like asistance with this -

Who will be supplying images for the site?

We can provide this service – from using our experience to select images for you from existing library shots through to organising a professional art directed photo shoot for you.

Do you want animation and moving graphics?

Do you have an existing corporate identity?

1. What are the primary colours of your corporate identity?
2. What are the secondary colours of your corporate identity?
3. Should the site reflect your existing brand marketing?

We have an excellent team of designers, can we help by looking at your existing corporate identity to offer advice and input?

Do you require it to be optimised?

Again we can offer different levels of optimisation from recommendations of keywords, monthly monitoring service with recommendations again even including different ideas and include suggestions on google ad words campaigns.

Do you have a budget for this project and a time frame?

What will this cost for start-up? For ongoing maintenance?

You should also budget money for search engine submissions, which were once free, but now can run into hundreds of pounds. We’re currently recommending our clients budget ￡500 for this.

Ongoing costs include hosting fees and regular updates to your site (which is a good idea)

Do you have web hosting?

Our web hosting is on a Linux server, running Apache supported by MySQL databases, with web hosting you will also be provided with email and a login to your own control panel, this will enable you to administer your email accounts.

Do you have a brandable domain?

We can register a domain name on you behalf.

Is this an e-commerce site?

Or if not is there potential for you in this area in the future?

If this is an e-commerce site, do you have a preferred payment gateway?

There are many different types of payment gateways for e-commerce, all will charge some kind of fee for their service, some of the most popular are Paypal, Worldpay and Protx.

Do you require a content management system for product areas, news areas or a recruitment page?

Would you like to track and analyse your site performance and visitors?

How do I attract more traffic to my site?

Search engines, links, advertising and more. we will make your site search engine friendly and submit your site to search engines and directories on your behalf. You should create reciprocal links with complementary sites. Consider advertising on specific search engines, email newsletters, and traditional media. Put your url (Web site address) on your business cards, stationery, voice mail, and so on. Send out free email newsletters. Add a Recommend This Site to a Friend form on your Web site. Continually update and improve on your site. Reviewing your site’s traffic reports can alert you to what visitors are finding interesting and what they’re ignoring.

How do we prove high credibility?

You need to maintain your credibility. With ANY business or organization you are only as good as your word. Prove your credibility and make it apparent – don’t make your users wonder about it.

What ideas can we use for linkbait?

Why beg for links when you can convince people to give them to you naturally.

If we can’t create great bait, how do we buy, barter, and beg for links?

Sometimes you just have to know the value of a link and how to ask for it. Even if you’re the best in your business, you should still spend SOME time asking for links.

Where else can we advertise?

Pay-per-click, banner ads, print, radio, flyers, direct mail, television, billboards and even bathroom stalls are all options. There is still a multitude of opportunity with other traditional advertising – just be SURE to leverage your online presence (include and plug your url as well as special tracking urls like redirected domains) when doing your more traditional advertising.