Congratulations, you have your own business and now you need to get a presence on the world wide web. After all, a website is available 24/7 and is an excellent way to promote your business.

STOP!

Before you start building your website (or asking around for a web designer) you really need to think about some basic ideas for what you want this website to do.

What’s it for?

• To show off my products or services?

Who are my target audience?

• Young, mature
• tech-savvy, technophobes
•  businesses, general public?

Others finding/using my website?

• To find out more about my business – what information will they need to know?
• Will they want to buy direct from the website – how might they want to pay?
• What ways might they want to contact me?

How should it look?

• Business-like, fun & funky, minimalist, info-overload?
• Colours, fonts, icons, images?
• Keep in mind your target audience.

How to keep it up to date?

• That’s OK, I know some HTML so I can do that myself.
• Please would a web designer do it for me?
• Content management system (CMS) would be great.