Getting Started

Define the Vision and Goal

What is it that you want your Web site to accomplish? This should be a very specific, measurable goal.
What specific action do you wish the user to do?
Your Web site's general purpose is to deliver information to the user. Information, by definition, changes the world view of the user in some way. How do you want it changed?

Define the Audience

Who are you trying to reach with your message?
Are they existing customers or new customers?
What is their age and income?
What is their education, vocabulary, and environment?
How to they get their information?
What are their needs?
What is their problem? You are trying to respond to a problem. In general, you want to identify this problem on your home page. This lets them know you understand their problem and identify with it.
What is the solution you offer to their problem?
How has it worked? (testimonials, etc.)

The need, problem, solution, and a call to action should be on the home page. Many users will not get beyond this.

Get Their Attention

Your home page must get the attention of this audience and their needs. Look at the world through the user's eyes, not your own. How would you be attracted to your site? The way you communicate your message to a teenager, for example, is radically different from how you reach a senior citizen.

Be Personal

Relate to the user as a person, not as an organization or inanimate object. Humor, interactivity, warm fuzzies, all make the user feel part of an organic process rather than an impersonal structure. MLMs for years have owed their success to the personal relationships and networking that is so important.

What is the Key Message You Want them to Take Away and Remember?

Focus on the key message. Slogans, graphics, and content should focus on this as quickly as possible. Keep it simple.

Make Your Site Sticky

What this means, in simple language, is hold them to your site. The longer you hold them at your site, the more they see your brand name and want to come back. What sites would your user be likely to stay at for a long period of time? Why?

Tell a Story

Some of the better sites often use malls, communities, galleries, and virtual television channels to bring the user into a story. Use warm fuzzies.

Look at the Competition

Look at competing web sites. Why are they successful? How do they answer the issues raised here?

Put the User in a Dynamic Environment

Why would a user return to your site? Your site should constantly change. Discussion groups, relevant news, chat rooms - all insure the content changes with time. Animation suggests movement, but be sure the animation is a part of the message. Identify what content on your site will change with time and how often.

Call for Action

Ask the user to do what you wish him or her to do. Be specific.

Honor the User's Privacy

State your privacy policy on your site, even if you are not using forms or collecting information from the user. Let them know you honor the confidentiality of the relationship.

Study Other Sites

Look at other well-designed sites and see how they did it. Here is one site to start from:

http://www.worldsbestwebsites.com