When I first meet with a client, one of the things we do is
attempt to determine the purpose of their website. On a website
planning worksheet we use, there is a list of purposes many
websites have in common. The client goes through the list
and ranks the items in order of importance. So the most important
item will be 1, and there will only be one item labelled
with a 1.
Here are the items in that list:
- To gain a favorable impression of the company or organization.
- To develop a qualified list of prospects
- To sell products directly taking credit card information
over the Internet
- To encourage potential customers to contact us by phone
or mail to consummate a sale
- To make available product information and price lists
to distributors
- To make available product information and price lists
to customers
- To strengthen brand identification
Another good idea is to come up with a succinct mission
statement for your site. You might even come up with one
for your eyes only, then one that can be used as a tagline
of sorts on your site.
One of our clients, The Christian Chronicle, has a good
example. Their tagline on their site is "An international
news source for members of churches of Christ." They've identified
not only what the site is all about, but even the target
audience for the site. An internal mission statement for
the Chronicle might be "Provide impartial reporting of news
relevant to members of the churches of Christ."
Whatever the case, a website should never be created just
to create a website. It should some purpose, whether that
purpose is just for fun or to make money. Establish that
mission for your site and then work to fulfill it.
Tim is the owner and senior web designer at
T&S
Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website
for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also
maintains a blog with free website advice for small business
owners,
GetASiteOnline.com.
