One of the hardest things I’ve found for clients is how to begin.  A web designer can’t start work on a project without a plan.  A lot of the time, I work directly with the client, helping them to put this together.  It’s a good idea however for you to understand the process and come prepared when you first get in touch with a web professional. 

I was recently in touch with a woman regarding a plan she needed to put together for a large ecommerce site that would sell custom computer hardware to the US market.  My questions specifically pertained to writing a website plan for an ecommerce site, however many of these points address all sites:

When beginning to work on a plan for your website, the very first question you need to answer is what is the goal of the site?  In this case one of the goals is to sell products online.  The next question is how do you want to go about doing this?  Take a look at what your competitors are doing online - know what you're up against.  See how they do it and put together ideas that you think work on their sites that you'd like to incorporate into yours.  If you're not satisfied with how the competition does it, don't feel limited.  Your company's site doesn't have to be as good as the other guy, it can be better.

Consider how your site will work, how many products will you be selling and how will they be sold?  Is there a need for each product to be tailored to the needs of the client?  Will the site order system need to be customized to permit this?  How many sections will you need on your site?  Has the site’s content and structure been written?  What type of customer service does your company offer and how do you envision this working on the website?  If the site needs to offer online support, how will this work?  If presented in a forum, is there enough content to support it? Does your company have the staffing to manage the website?

Who is your site's market?  How do you see the ecommerce site reaching them?  Has there been consideration placed into marketing the site once it's launched?  There are various ways to draw traffic to your site: SEO - (Search Engine Optimization) ensuring that your site is built correctly and that all elements of the content and construction are optimized with keywords to attract organic traffic (people who do internet searches to find your company's service).   What type of social media marketing do you wish to employ?  Is reaching your target market best done through networking on social networks like linked in, facebook or twitter?   Is there a need for paid advertising - banners on strategic sites, professional articles linked to your site, paid per click adwords campaign?

The site design is an extremely important consideration - it can make or break a site.  How should people describe your site?  What ideas would you like to convey through the design?  Some examples include: prestigious, friendly, corporate, trustworthy, fun, forward thinking, innovative, bright, bold, calming, elegant, clean, organic, minimal, and cutting edge.

The way that the user interface is designed controls the way the user moves through the site.  A fluid and intuitive navigation system is a necessity; a user should be able to get to any page from any page.  Each page needs to be carefully planned with a clear goal that you'd like to accomplish.  You need to think, ‘Okay the user has arrived to this page, what do I want them to do?’  It's not enough to invest marketing in bringing visitors to your site.  Through the design and content, you want to ensure that the user stays on your site and does what you want them to do - you're site's 'call to action' – which for this site is presumably making an inquiry into a product or making a purchase.

Writing detailed answers for each of these questions will put order to an otherwise daunting task. To further help you put together a plan for your site, click here to download my client survey that addresses many of the issues above and filled in, will help you create an outline for your project.