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Net Watch Article - Having A Successful Website Step 1 p1
Planning  (Part 1)

I’ve had many calls recently from people wanting to start web sites. What I’ve found is that most people have no idea of what is involved with having a successful site. Over the next few months we will look at the following areas: 1. Planning, 2. Hosting, 3. Design 4. Marketing

For this month’s article, let’s look at planning. Like everything else, planning is the important first step that most people do not want to take the time and effort to do. Most successful businesses start with a comprehensive and thoughtful business plan, having a plan for your web project is just as important. A serious pitfall I’ve seen too often is trying to do too much too soon. Money doesn’t grow on trees for most of us and we need to make every penny count toward our final goal. Starting slowly with a plan that moves forward is the best way to see an early return on your investment

There are two major points you need to start with. One, your starting point and two, your desired ending point. There may be several stops along the way, but you need to have a clear destination to shoot for. For example if I wanted to drive to California from South Carolina, it would be smart for me to first plan the most desirable route, then set daily travel goals. These “travel goals” are very important as they keep the trip manageable and help prevent me from falling asleep at the wheel and running into a tree. In the same way you need to plan your web project. I’ve seen many clients burn out by placing unrealistic expectations on their web project.

Step one, where are you now? Are you starting from scratch? Do you have the necessary skills in-house to get things off the ground? Have you researched competing web sites and how they do things? Maybe you already have a web site but it is not performing as well as you would like. These are all very important questions to ask and more importantly have the answers to.

Once you know the starting point, ask yourself where you want to go. Some of my clients really don’t want to grow that big, while others want their web project to replace their current jobs and supply all of their income. Once you’ve chosen your end goal, make realistic intermediate goals. Here is an example.

I have a client who had a web site that was underperforming. All he wanted was to increase his site traffic to help create orders for his work and he asked us to submit his site to the search engines. His site was very unorganized and to pay for marketing would increase traffic but not give him the desired result. We helped him set just a couple of goals. First, prepare the site to be attractive to the new traffic. We did a quick facelift of his site using his current content and images. Second we spent time developing content that would be search engine friendly. Thirdly we marketed his site to the search engines. He is very satisfied with the results and his site is now accomplishing his goals.

Our services cover much more than web page design. People say hindsight is 20-20. Well, we have almost 7 years experience with building successful web sites. We can help you create a realistic business plan for your web project. Whether you are suffering with a floundering web site, or wanting to start a new web project. Let us help you and draw on our many years in the business.