1. Set your goals

Setting goals will give you the focus as you plan the various elements of your website

• Why do you need a website?
• What type of website do you need?
• What functionalities does the website need in order to achieve your objectives?
• What do you want to achieve with your website and what do you want your visitor to do?

2. Research

• Who is your target market?
• Where is your target market?
• What is your target market looking for?
• Check out your competition - what do you like and dislike?
• What techniques are available and what will suit your needs?

3. Target your market

Your target market defines your brand and this will be very  important for the right choice of the

• domain name
• design
• content

4. Write your content

The content is king and is important to draw your visitors into your website and to grab their attention.

• What information does your website need to include?
• How much content will you need?
• Research and include the keywords you are targeting to rank highly in the search engines

5. Develop a structure for your website

This will be important for your navigation and to make it easy for your visitor to find what they are looking for.

• Create a website hierarchy with your most important pages at higher level
• Decide how the content will be divided
• Group the pages according to topics
• Think about how visitors will navigate your website and what you want them to do

6. Start date & update frequency

• Set yourself a goal as to when you want the website to start and when you want it to be launched
• How often do you plan on updating your website - daily, weekly or monthly?

Now you can start with the design of your website - bearing in mind your website goals, target market and your content.