Probably the most critical part of Internet marketing for your business is organizing your website so it will achieve your overall goals.  Yet, most people completely bypass this important step or, worse, just turn the whole project over to a website designer to handle. 

The process of carefully planning the outline of a new website or upgrade to an existing website will secure for you not only a vehicle to show off your business in the best light, but also one that you are able to control the process of updating content, and, most importantly, achieve your business goals.  Below are a number of steps to follow while planning your new website:

1.  Write down on a piece of paper everything you think the visitors to your web site might want to know about your product or service.  For example, visitors to a school’s website would probably want to know the attendance levels, size of the classrooms, information on staff members and what sports they can participate in.  Take the time to brainstorm as many areas related to your product, service or industry that someone might be interested in when visiting the website.

2.  Imagine for a short time that you are a potential website customer.  Visit some websites and review them as if you are in the market for the services those sites have to offer.  As a visitor who is genuinely interested in your product or service, what are the good things and bad things about each site you visit?  Are you driven to take action?  Are you able to find what you are looking for quickly and easily? How many different pages do you have to click through to find what you want?  Take notes on all this information with the purpose of making your own website as visitor friendly as possible.

3.  Do keyword research to find out what visitors will be searching for. Google has a free keyword research tool that will work fine for this purpose.  Enter a general phrase related to your product or service, such as “coffee filters” and other related keywords will appear.  Your visitors already have questions about these things.  By arming yourself with this information, you will be able to plan your website to answer their questions right away. 

4.  Plan your new website so that it can expand.  Stay away from website formats that can’t be expanded easily to add products and new pages.  A good website is a constant work in process. 

5.  Plan a website that you can control, rather than be at the mercy of a web designer to make even small changes to your website.   Old fashioned websites that only a web developer can change do not work in today’s dynamic Internet marketing environment that demands new content added regularly.  It is to your advantage to plan a website platform that will allow you to add content quickly and simply.

Usually, a new website is one of your business’ largest expenses.  Don’t waste it with an inferior website that doesn’t support your business objectives. 

Marty Dickinson is the founder of HereNextYear, Inc., a full service Internet marketing company in business for over 10 years. His specialty is Internet marketing solutions for the small business owner, speakers and authors. Visit to see what HereNextYear has to offer and to learn more about their innovative new website packages fully integrated for ease with social networking and other Internet marketing strategies.

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