Before planning a business website, it's necessary to identify your audience or target market. Define the purpose of the website, its content, and how it will most effectively reach the target market. Examine the sites of your business competitors, and make note of their strengths and weaknesses.
- audience - define WHO the target market (audience), and the reasons they will want to visit your site
- purpose - define the objective of the website and what it will accomplish and what the audience will get from it
- content - after the purpose of the website is clearly defined, the content will need to be evaluated and organized according to the audience's needs
- technicality - coding, compatibility and restrictions need to be considered. During the design process, websites need to be tested on multiple platforms for incompatibilities among web browsers. Eliminate syntax errors in the website by testing the code validity with the World Wide Web Consortium (see 'test this code' button in lower right corner for more info)