VirtualMV/Web Development/Building Web Site/Planning/Content

Site purpose

• Determine the purpose of the web site
  • Must support business goals
  • May decide a web site is not appropriate
• What is the purpose of the web site - from the client's perspective?
  • To inform?
  • To entertain?
  • eBusiness?

Determine the site's audience

First of all, you must determine who the audience is for your site. This is critical, because many design and content decisions depend on this.

Identify some of the following:

• The age range
  • Designed for children, teens, adults
• Gender (If appropriate)
  • Site for Car Parts, Women's Shoes, etc
• Ethnicity/Culture/Language/Gender
  • Is your site for an international audience?
  • Will you need to handle multiple languages?
• Level of computer experience
  • Technical site on Computing Hardware, Children's gaming site
• What interest areas you would expect visitors/users to have.
  • E.g. Interest in sports, collecting, trains, cooking, etc...
• Where will your target audience access your site?
  • E.g. work, school or home?
• Devices used to view site
  • E.g. PC, Laptop, Tablet, Mobile phone

And for each identify what should be done to address these needs.

• How fast is their Internet connection?
• Do they want to be informed or entertained?

Make sure you know the answers to these types of questions from the outset

Try to answer the following questions:

• Why would someone want to visit my site?
• Why would someone want to revisit the site?
• How can the site be future proofed?

University web sites: What there is v's what is wanted. A cartoon by Randall Munroe which has been used by Uni web developers to focus on what is important in their sites, http://edudemic.com/2011/01/best-law-school-websites/

Types of Web Site

Sites can be implemented in various ways..some are listed on the page VirtualMV/Web Development/Web Site Types

Domain name

• A domain is the name and address of your website, rolled into one.
• Choosing a domain name can be tricky, as a huge number of domains, particularly the .com versions, are already reserved. 
• Think about domain names that are memorable and describe your business well - given the competition for domains and the premium on short or highly-trafficked domains, you may even want to let the availability of domains influence your choice of business name (if it’s not already decided).
• There are a number of websites, such as MyDomain.com or GoDaddy.com, that will allow you to check the availability of domain names and register available names immediately - for a

Hosting

You will also need to develop a hosting plan. Refer to the page VirtualMV/Web Development/Website hosting