Planning a New Website – Checklist

Prior to launching a website, one should always have a plan. Building a website is like building a house, if you do not have a plan, additional costs will come up, changes need to be made and your budget will reach it’s limit in short time.

The following is a brief outline of items to consider prior to launching a new website. Although you may not have the answers right away, it will be good practise to start to ‘think out’ the strategy and plan for your website.

In no particular order:

Who are your website visitors?

This important question addresses who your website visitors will be. Is it a certain demographic, young vs old, male vs. female or a mix of both.

Will your website users be local, national or international?

Is your website for new customers, suppliers, vendors, employees, potential business partners, etc.

What do you want your website to do?

The functionality part.

A few questions in this category would include:

• Do you want to sell online or have an online catalog?
• have visitors send you feedback or inquiries,
• have people sign up to your mailing list

In general, what specifically do you want your website to do.

Website Goals, Objectives & Targets

What do you wish to accomplish with your website and why do you need a website?

What area your expectations in regards to site traffic? How many people do you wish to have to your site on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis?

Website Design

What is the look and feel for your website? Will you be following your existing business/corporate color scheme or will you require a new color scheme made up for your business?

What will the layout look like?

• Simple 2 column layout
• 3 column layout with advertising
• Single one-page business card website

Do you have a particular website design in mind or is there a website our there that your like the ‘look and feel’

Do you have a website logo?

Who will manage your website?

When it comes time to make updates to your website, will you, your staff or a website development company manage the content on your website.

There is a growing trend to have a content management system (CMS) where one can easily manage images, photos, videos and text on a website. This is an area to explore with your website developer as well.

Questions about website management:

• How often (daily, weekly, monthly) will your website need to be updated?
• Do you forecast videos, new images or other content coming in on a regular basis?

Technical Items: Domain Names, Hosting & More

Have you registered one or many domain names?

Where will your website be hosted?

Do you plan on sending our mass emails or newsletters?

Do you plan to sell online and need to accept credit cards?

Website Images, Photos and Video

Do you currently have company brochures or branding that you could use on your website?

Will you required logo development, graphic design and a color scheme laid out for your website?

Will you purchase professional photos or simply do them yourself?

Website Marketing and Promotion

Now that you have your website built, what plans to you have in place to promote and market your website on the Internet?

This is an area where many website owners fall short with the simple assumption that once the website is built and placed on the Internet, people will automatically come to their sites.

Many successful websites allocate an on-going budget for online promotion and advertising in areas such as search engine optimizations (SEO), link building, traffic buying, banner advertising, press releases and more.

Who will provide marketing services for your website?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Website optimization is the process of having your website show up for certain keyword terms in the search engine results.

What keywords would you wish to be found for?

What major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com) will you be using or wish to be found in?