Create a Short List of the Site's Goals

If you don't know what your site is supposed to do, then how will you know if it successful in doing it?

Be honest -- choose goals you actually feel you can achieve

These goals should be simple and concrete, for example:

• Increase sales of our Enterprise Widget by 20% within three months
  
  
• Have 30% of users view our Current Specials page each day by March 2002
  
  
• Win the stlwebdev.org Best Corporate Site Design Award in 2001

 

Also, define your target audience. Be specific -- there is no such thing as the general public! A good example might combine geographic, demographic and psychographic data like:

We are targeting men between the ages of 18 and 35 who hold a Bachelor's degree in an engineering field and who enjoy outdoor sports. Our target audience has an average annual income of $75,000 per year and is mainly concentrated in the Midwest United States.

You can have more than one target audience, but you will need to write your content appropriately for each one.