The Beginning Steps
by Jesse Seymour

With today's technology, anyone can slap together a
website in one day. The even more talented people can
slap one together in a few hours. While this
convenience is not necessarily bad, it has led to a
degradation in the quality of sites out there, and an
increase in the quanity of sites. This increase in
the number of sites is making it a lot more difficult for
people to find the sites they're looking for. And the
chances that they will find your site are extremely
low.

When the typical person surfs the net, they usually
spend just enough time at a site to form a first
impression of it. Then, if the impression is
negative, they immediately bail out and leave the site.
Therefore, it behooves you to take extra steps to make
sure your site has a consistent, professional
appearance and gives off a favorable impression.

I'm sure that none of you out there would rush right
into building a house without first drawing a floor
plan, taking painstaking care to the little details to
make sure the plan gets drawn the way you want it to.
You would make sure that the walls are all the proper
length, the doors are cut square, and the glass fits
the window frames. Since your website is your digital
home, why should you put any less effort, in you put
any at all, into planning out the website?

A lot of you probably heard the saying, "If you fail
to plan, you plan to fail." This applies more to
designing and constructing a website than any other
thing I've seen in this world. Since when you do
business online, you cannot be there with your
customer face-to-face and so your website is the digital you.
Your website absolutely must project a professional
"feel", so to speak.

If a visitor to your site has any problem, no matter
how slight, he or she will high-tail it out of there.
So, when it comes to your website, you have to be a
strict perfectionist - as long as you do not take it
to the extreme. Designing a web site, however, can be
pretty much a free-for-all mashing of keys and pulling
of hair and you may be wondering just where to start.
Just hang tight, and this article will show you the
steps that are most effective in planning a website.

CHOOSE A TOPIC

This step is the simplest and funnest step to do. All
you do here is simply pick a topic that you know quite
a bit about. Avoid overly general topics, such as
"Gardening" or "Computers". Instead, try to narrow it
down by choosing a topic such as "Vegetable Gardening"
or "PC Operation". Another word of caution here -
don't get too specific. Generally, the more specific of a
topic, the smaller of a site you will have. Once you
have decided on a topic, write it down on a standard
piece of notebook paper right across the top.

CREATE A PURPOSE

Why exactly are you building this site? Is it to
attract customers, to provide a service, or for
informative content? A purpose helps to keep you on
task when you start to build your website. It's
extremely easy to get sidetracked when working on the
Internet, as email and instant messages keep coming in
just when you don't want them to. My advice to you in
this situation is to shut down your email program and
close all your instant messenger programs.

A purpose for your site is not only essential - your
purpose IS your site. Without a clearly defined, and
specific, purpose your site will quickly crumble to
the ground. Skipping this step would be like skipping the
foundation of a house. While you could still build a
house without it, it will be much harder doing so.

Once you have your purpose reasoned out, put it down
on paper. Seeing your purpose on paper will not only help
to keep you on task, but it will also give you the
feeling that your purpose is more "real" than if you
just left it fluttering around in your mind.

DEFINE YOUR OBJECTIVES

Your objectives are goals that you have to reach in
order to acheive your purpse. When first creating a
site, it can be hard to figure out in which direction
you need to go in first. Defining your objectives is
the way around this.

I personnally recommend defining three objectives, one
to be reached in siz months, another in twelve months,
and the last one to be reached in eighteen months.
This covers a significant amount of time, but will
still make you feel like you are slightly working
under a deadline. A deadline is not only an extremely good
motivator, but it will also keep you on task.

Once you have your objectives defined, put them down
on paper. By now, you should have a good chunk of the
paper filled in. Hang this paper somewhere where you
can easily read it. The next time you are working on
your computer ask yourself, "Is this helping me to
meet my objectives?". If the answer is no, you might want
to consider doing something that will allow you to
answer "yes" to that question.

-------------------------------------------------------
Jesse Seymour runs a newsletter titled The Web Helper.
The Web Helper is dedicated to bringing the best
resources to the inboxes of all levels of webmasters.
You may subscribe to The Web Helper by sending a blank
email to: mailto:web_helper-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
-------------------------------------------------------

*** MAY OMIT THIS DISCLAIMER ***
THIS ARTICLE MAY BE FREELY DISTRIBUTED AS LONG AS THE
ENTIRE ARTICLE, INCLUDING THE RESOURCE BOX, REMAINS
INTACT AND IN ITS ENTIRETY.




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/