Why do I want a site?

The first question you should ask yourself is why do you want a website. Is it personal or business related? You can choose to either have a passively informal or actively functional site. These are the questions you have to ask yourself before launching a site. When you begin building your site you will have a clear direction to take and a solid foundation.

Who am I targeting?

What target audience are you targeting with this site? If you are selling hand crafted porcelain masks why do you have a news feed ticking on your site or if you are advertising a graphic design shop why don’t you have samples of your work? Know who your audience is and make sure to cater to them!

What message do I want to give?

What do you want your site visitors to take with them from their visit? Sharing your company background, goals, and team members would give a more personal connection to visitors. Also, having a blog on the site or some sort of RSS enabled will dynamically update the site. It is a way to expand your content without expanding the pages, therefore leaving your site simple to navigate and familiar for repeat visitors.

What is SEO and why is it important?

My good friend Alfonso Bonin once asked me if I knew about optimizing search engines. I heard of dirty tricks to massively tag websites for better search results. I had no clue there was a ‘fair play’ way to gain popularity and a whole industry behind concepts developed for search engine optimization (SEO). Now it is as important to website builders both large and small to understand the fundamentals of SEO as much as it is to know how to use HTML. There are many SEO groups both free and cost-based. Maybe for now you can use free tools provided publicly. You probably will benefit from professional consulting in as little as a year or two.

Below is a page badge for my site, Mental Gear Unltd., Trifeca page strength report provided by the SEOmoz group. Not bad for natural growth of one month!

Page Badge 

So are you ready to roll your sleeves up and get this started? Get your geek on and read on…