Planning A Site

You might think that you will plan the site later, after you buy the domain name (your site's address) and web space, but that would be the biggest mistake that you would make. Planning for the site must start much before you actually invest any money at all into it.



It is very important that you plan the following prior to starting building your website.

1) What is your website going to be about?

It is very important that you decide what content your site is going to hold. This is very important because it will decide who is your target audience, and will govern many important steps in the building of your website such as the domain name, amount of webspace required, and even the marketting tactics which you can use to get people to your website.

2) What is the name of your site?

Although, sometimes weird names like google or orkut do become popular, most of the times people remember websites which have names which are easy to remember such as download.com . Also the name you choose should be relevant to the content on your website, & it should be short. Choose a name wisely.


3) Deciding a domain name or sub-domain name.

A domain name is the address which people will type in their browser so as to get to your website (e.g. www.pharmaxchange.info ). It is very important that you choose a domain name which has the following characteristics:

a) It is something related to your website-
e.g. If your site is something related to medicine, a good domain name would be www.medicine.com
If the domain name is something which people can correlate to the content on your website, the person will remember your website better and be able to visit your site again with greater ease.

b) It should be short and simple-
domain names which are large and complicated are almost never remembered by people, thus if a person who wants to visit your site again would not be able to do so with ease, and that is not good. So it is important that a domain name is short and simple. e.g. A domain name for a site of a person called john ballack should not be www.mynameisjohnballack.com(too lengthy) or even www.j0hnballack.com (you probably don't see it but the 0 in j0hn is actually a numerical number and hence it is too complicated). A good domain name would be www.johnballack.com

c) What should it be? .com .info .edu .co
The domain name that you choose can have many extensions such as .com or .edu or .org or .net or .info . These extensions are very important nowadays. Since .com is the most popular exension, it is a good choice if you can get it. However, due to its popularity, most .com domain names have been taken, or they are very high priced. Due to these reasons it is better now to get a cheaper domain name of the other extensions like .net .org .edu or even .info. Again, you should choose an extension which people can correlate with your site- e.g. if your site is an educational site you should get a .edu extension.

d) Check for availability.
it is important that you check whether the domain name you want is available or not. Instructions on how to check for availability will be given in a later article on "domain name registration". In short though, you have to use a Whois tool to check for availability of domain names.

NOTE- KEEP ATLEAST THREE OR FOUR ALTERNATIVE DOMAIN NAMES IN YOUR MIND SO THAT EVEN IF YOU DONT GET ONE YOU CAN TRY ANOTHER.
ALSO IF THE DOMAIN NAME YOU LIKE IS AVAILABLE REGISTER IT BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE TAKES IT.

Think of domain names as virtual property, a good name can be sold by you anywhere between 10$ - 1000$. Although, it is rare that a person would buy a domain name which is that expensive, it is possible especially if your website beomes popular.


4) How much space you require and which service provider should you buy it at?

Once you have decided on what content you are going to hold on your website, you would have some idea of how much space the site requires. If the website has only textual content then anywhere between 50 - 200 mb of space should be enough, depending on the amount of content. But, if the site contains a lot of graphics, or downloadable softwares, you will require more web space - say anywhere between 100 mb to maybe even a few gb.

You must also look out for other things apart from the webspace that the service provider offers such as bandwidth, perl, php, e-mail ids, etc. All these will be covered in greater detail in an article for buying webspace which I will put up soon. For now it is just important to know the amount of space required.


5) Gestation period of your website.

You must determine approximately how much time it is going to take for you to develop the website so that it has the minimum content that your visitors can see. The website can grow later, but you should decide what is the content which you want on the site first so that visitors can come to your site, & how much time it is going to take for you to build it. Later you can add additional sections to make your website grow.

It is not important that you know exactly when you are going to start, but setting a deadline helps to work as per schedules.


6) The look of your site.

You should decide the look of your website immediately after you buy your domain name, & before you buy anything else. A more detailed article on what your website should look like will be given later. But the basic idea should be that you should draw a rough sketch of what your website should look like. Also if possible design a logo for your website.


7) Where is the money going to come from?

Depending on what kind of a website you have money to run it as well as profits can come from various sources. Advertising on your site is a great way to make money. Also if you are selling a product, that could be the source of your money. Or it could even be a local sponser like a shop or company.

A more detailed article on how to generate revenue from your website will be put up later. Remember a website will need some money to start, but it will produce profits over a period of time.


These 7 steps of planning are the most important steps which you can take to ensure a smooth begenning and an efficient running of your website. Apart from these points, you can plan other minor details as well, but these should not be ignored.