Planning Your Site

Before you create your site, here is a checklist to ensure your planning is focused and your content complete.

Who is Your Audience?

1.  Are you a therapist, school, or supplier?

·        Who is your target audience?

·        What are the characteristics of this audience?
(i.e. educational levels, occupation, ages, etc...)

·        Is the site designed to assist customers and suppliers?

What is your Business?

1.  Describe your type of Business / Organization.

2.  What markets are you pursuing (Business / Consumers / Both)?

3.  Scope of your business Local / Regional / National / Global

4.  Number of offices

5.  Number of Employees/Associates

6.  Is there a specific executive responsible for your site(s)?

7.  How often will your web site be updated?

8.  Who is going to be responsible for reading the e-mail that the website will generate?

Checklist:
Gather together the information you want to be on your site.

·        Company Name

·        Contact Information / Location

·        Company Logo

·        Images:   related to products and services - none to be larger than 20k for fast loading

·        What are the main Categories / Sections or Page Titles for your site?

·        Colour Scheme

·        Highlights: what makes you special

·        Key Employee / Management Bios

·        Customer Testimonials

·        Do you need a Guestbook, a Calendar of Events, or Video?

·        Do you have enough typed text content for the web site?

·        How many pages of information will you have to start? Do you expect this to increase?

Hiring a Designer
Once you have settled on a web host, be it Massage.ca or another party, you must decide what you need from a web company.

Are you hiring someone to:

·        Plan the site?

·        Produce the website only, or create your entire corporate identity - Logo, Letterhead, etc.

·        Is this person going to teach you or someone else in your office how to maintain your site?

·        Is this person going to create content (text) for the site?

·        What special skills does this person need to have? SQL? Flash? Video Editing?

·        Have you seen this person's portfolio?

If you have an existing site, consider these questions:

1.  How many employees currently contribute / build content for your site?

2.  How many are technical (html and other) programmers?

3.  Do you want to increase the number of non-technical contributors?

4.  Is your web site built by:

·        An internal web team

·        An external supplier

·        A mixture of both

·        Internally

·        Outsourced

·        Mixed

Rate these aspects of your site (i.e., Good/Satisfactory/Needs Improvement/Non-Existent)

·        The URL/Domain Name is appropriate and meaningful

·        The surfer sees something meaningful within 8 seconds

·        The Site Name and Product / Purpose load instantly

·        The first page is less than 20K, and images are kept small

·        The text is visible (and held steady) while graphics are loaded

·        The navigation is accessible on every page of my website

·        The navigation is clear and efficient

·        The interface is pleasing and compelling

·        Where business and products are based is shown

·        The TITLES are meaningful

·        The content is of a consistently high quality

·        The content is timely

·        The content is well-organized

·        The content reflects your e-business mission

o   The brand is consistent (message and look)

o   The content is efficient  directing the surfer to related information

·        There is plenty of opportunity for user interaction

·        There are some free and helpful content pages for my viewers

·        There is a special or incentive for my viewers

·        There is a comment or feedback form for site visitors and / or clients

·        There are no broken links

·        The internal and external links on my website are only for businesses that are related to my core business

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