by Jamila Vaughan

Created on: November 22, 2008

9 Essential Tips for Building a Brand New Small Business Website

Designing your own website from scratch can be daunting. It's almost like someone handing you a blank canvas and challenging you to create a masterpiece. Well, if you're feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to begin, just follow a these nine steps. Do your planning and implementation in phases, taking your time. A good website will not be built overnight. With good planning and a communicative, experienced web designer, you will be able to create an effective website.

1. Lay out clear, measurable objectives. This is the step that many skip, and then run into problems later. If you don't have a goal in mind, and have no way to measure it, you never know why your website isn't performing well. And expansion of the website can be disjointed and frustrating. Decide if you are planning to inform, sell things, get new leads, entertain, educate, facilitate communication, be a portal, etc. Will you receive emails, collect email addresses, field phone calls, make money? Once you make that choice (it could be a combination), you have a direction for your project. Surf the net and bookmark websites you like. Envision your ideal, successful website, with no limits. You can reign in your ideas later.

2. Who is your audience? Do your homework to find out your current and target audiences. You want to attract people who are already looking for you, and don't want to alienate those who may have never heard of you. Your fresh and interesting, high quality content should speak directly to your audience. The style of writing will be determined in part by your audience. At this time you will bring up accessibility for those with physical disabilities, the level of technical skill needed to move about the website, type of computer and internet browser, connection speed, etc. It's better to talk to some of your customers beforehand, or do a survey rather than guess or assume.

3. Decide how to present the information. There are many ways to present the same type of information. Take into account your brand, company personality, and type of content before deciding whether to present your information as a blog, an online magazine, news articles, store pages, a gallery, a timeline, etc. Your presentation may be a combination or something completely new. The most important thing is that your format is context appropriate and helps, not hinders users from using the website.

4. Structure your information. Before you start

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