You’ve decided to create a Web site, excellent, you’ve done the right thing! Next up is thinking about what kind of Web site you are going to need. Just like everything else, in order to create the best possible web presence for yourself or your business you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. Let’s take a look at some of the things you should be thinking about.

1. Deciding what you want to say

One of the most crucial concerns you want to tackle is that of stating as clearly as possible the purpose of the Web site in one sentence. You need to be as specific as possible here, something like “Creating the best looking website in the country” is not going to cut it. Focus on the real purpose of your Web site. Some excellent examples:

• To advertise music lessons offered by a collective of piano teachers in Malta
• To chronicle my trip to India working with orphan children
• To provide a showcase of all the products and services our company offers

That gives you a starting point that will lead you in the right direction for tackling the next question.

2. Targeting your audience

Defining the site’s intended audience is another determining factor in planning your Web site successfully. A site’s visual style and functionality is considerably influenced by its expected audience. When thinking about your audience, you should consider factors such as their age, experience in using the Web, sex, equipment they are using and educational background. Clearly a shopping site will have a more straightforwand and simple look and functionality compared with a technology magazine site, for example. While the shopping site has a very wide spectrum of potential users, a technology magazine website has a much narrower target audience and can probably afford to be more complex and snazzy.

3. Determining your resources

The final step is to thinkg about monetary, time and also bandwidth resources. Great websites don’t get done for free, and neither are they done in a day or two. The process of building a Web site does not only involve development resources but also the creation of materials and content, as well as ongoing maintenance.

It is also important to think about what bandwidth you can expect your users to have, if most of your users will probably have limited internet speeds it is probably not a good idea to include alot of bandwidth gobbling videos and animations, although they can be used sparingly where relevant.

Giving yourself the time to go through the ideas presented above will go a long way in ensuring that you start off your Web site venture on the right footing, with a clear idea of what the final Web site should work and how it will look like.