planning your ebusiness site

> who is the customer?
Accurately determining who the customer is can be the key to success. Who are they and why do they want to see your site? What are their typical activities? Are they looking for information written or visual / downloads / connectivity to others?

> what is their demographic?
How will your customers react to your site? What are their expectations and interests? Are they needing access to information quickly or something relating to an online audio / visual experience? Do people buying music online want a highly interactive experience to try out their purchase before buying or do they know what they are looking for? Do people in a warehouse need photographic / visual content when ordering online or will this clutter the page and reduce efficiency? > www.pineapster.co.uk

> what do you have to offer them?
Are you supplying information such as guidance on producing a website? Are you producing music / video or photographic information? If so, are there any copyright issues that you should consider? Why should people get this information from you rather than the vast number of others sites available?

> what type of image do you want to project?
Who are you? What are you about? What values can you project to your customers through your online image? How do these values relate to whether a customer will purchase or use your information?

content

> where can you source your visual content?
For many sites photographs and artwork play a role. Where will these come from and how will you use them? Make them relevant and dynamic.

If you have photographic / design skills then use them. If not, then get someone to help you or design the site for you. Designing your site is a gradual process of experimentation and calculated risk and several concepts may need to be generated before going ahead with a final design that features the right information structure. A useful site to get design software tuition is www.lynda.com. There are many free tutorial videos on the site.

Using interesting interfaces to represent potentially "stuffy" information can generate new interest in products and services that we previously ignored or underated. It is not simply dressing up the information, it is inspiring and capturing the clients / customers imagination through the use of web design, usability and accessibility

> where can you source your written content?
Written content is typically written in third party format where possible to promote your products / services / ideas. Content should be customer-centric, appealing to their hopes and expectations for the site and content rather than your own political, personal or other agenda.

> information structure is important
what are the key topics? How can you guide your user / client to the correct or relevant information? How will you present other relevant services to them where they may take their purchase to a new level? Make sure that you do not limit the expansion of your site by having too many links on the initial pages or being too specific in your index page headings.

Guide the user to the different information areas and try to get them to their desired location within a couple of clicks. Use icons and graphics for key sections, colour schemes and text systems for fine tuning of information resourcing.

> look around at other sites
When ever a new product of any kind is developed it is important to know your competitors. Web design is no exception. Look around at similar sites to the one you plan to develop. How are they constructed visually? What sort of image do they portray? How do you and other people typically access these sites to get information?

Find successful sites, find what you would consider to be unsuccessful sites and maybe investigate how many hits they get per month from where and who?

> how will people know you exist?
You have an online presence but does anybody know you are there? How will they ever find out? Search engines such as Yahoo! are no longer accepting free form submissions for website locations. Instead they encourage you to pay for a ranking or use their own robots to find accurately constructed METATAGS.

Will you promote your site using printed material - postcards, advertising in magazines, local papers. Are you looking for a national or local presence? Are there any big name sponsors who can help you out? Will business arrive by "word of mouth"?

> copyright
Just because your material is online does not make it exempt from copyright law. The law is there to protect you also. Avoid putting other peoples photographs, images, video, audio or logos on your site without prior permission [preferably written in many cases] to avoid court cases or just general hassle.

You can take images from the net and adjust them for your own means - as long as they are not particularly recognisable [eg after applying photoshop filters] then this is generally acceptable. There are certain rules that apply to soundbites.....however, the legal implications of this must be explored before any video / audio is placed on your site.

www.ice-sport-tech.com is an excellent example of logo placement. Kristan Bromley, director and world class bobsleigh champion, has to be very careful how he presents his sponsors to the world as there are certain companies who do not want to be associated or 'seen near to' or 'with other' companies in terms of logo placement.

> assistance and funding with your ebusiness
There is a variety of funding and assistance available for training, start up and production of your business such as the Princes Trust and more locally EMNET who are helping ecommerce businesses in East Midlands objective 2 areas.