So you need a web site… What questions should you be asking?

August 5th, 2011 → 5:40 am @ iowawebguy // 2 Comments

So, you’ve decided you need a web site.  Awesome!  It’s the cheapest form of advertising and the best bang for your buck.

However, to get the best return on your investment (ROI) you should be asking some basic questions in order to develop a PLAN and define GOALS. These questions should be asked BEFORE you begin development.

1) What is the purpose of your web site?
Are you wanting to:

• develop a presence or extend your brand?
• share information?
• build relationships?
• attract new business?
• sell products?

2) What are your goals and objectives and how do you measure success?
In order to effectively develop a web site, you need to define your goals and objectives early and determine how you will measure success.  Then, build your site to accomplish these goals putting metrics (ways to measure) in place in order to evaluate success.

3) Who is your competition and what are they doing?
Do they have a web site? What do you like and dislike about their web site. What can you do to make your site stand out?

4) What should I budget for web site development?
Yep, you knew this one would be here, right?  Everything is possible, but you need to set a budget for your site.  Depending on the complexity of your site, this will vary by hundreds if not thousands.  One of the most common questions I receive is: “How much does it cost to develop a web site?”  This question is much like “How much does it cost to build a house?”  There are many factors that determine the cost.  Look for an upcoming blog post with tools that can help you determine a range of costs.  Suprisingly, the answer could be $O.OO (aka FREE).

5) How often will you be updating your site?
This is a very important question.  If your site is going to be updated frequently, you’ll want to consider a content management system (CMS) behind the scenes so you can update the site yourself (hopefully easily) to lower your long-term costs.  Alternatively, if you don’t plan on updating your site on a regular basis, a CMS system would not be necessary–lowering your up-front costs. (However you’ll have to pay your developer when you want updates.)

These are the basic questions you should ask PRIOR to developing a web site.  These questions alone can help you not only streamline the development process, but also save you TIME and MONEY!  There are several more questions which I will discuss in upcoming posts.

As always, if you have any questions or comments post below.

— The Iowa Web Guy

Tags: content management system, questions, web development, web development goals, web development plan, web site development budget, web strategy