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You have to have an objective before you take action. You must know what goal your Web site has to serve in your organization. If you want your site to help you with image building, you are going to have very different needs from an ecommerce site.

How many visitors do we want in a given time frame? What do we want them to do when they visit our site? What would an additional 10 percent per year increase in customers would do to your bottom line?

Who is target audience for your site? Are you selling to stay at home moms or, are you selling to C-level corporate executives? The look and feel of you site must reflect whom you are trying to reach. Have you looked at your competitors' Web sites?

How does your target audience perceive your current Web site (if you have one)? Is your Web site an ingrained part of your business, or is it just a result of a once exciting but long forgotten project? If you have a Web site be sure to survey your customers, and learn from them. Ask specific questions about what they think about your content, user friendliness, and overall usefulness.

What sort of impression do you wish to create? If your target audience is teenagers, your Web site needs to look and feel very different than if you try to create a site for professionals. The colors, the layout, the language, and images have to support the impression you are trying to create.

What do we need to tell our target audience? If your web site is supposed to educate your customers about your services, you should make sure you provide all possible information to successfully differentiate yourself from your competition. If you believe your product is better, don't just make statements such as "We have superior quality!" Be specific, and provide hard evidence supported by facts not adjectives. Your target audience is much more likely to believe you when you provide facts to support your claims. Show numbers, charts, graphs, try to keep the site easy to read with sufficient visuals. Don't create pages filled with text unless your goal is to bore your customers to tears.