Developing a new website is a big project, both for the site owner and for the web developer. When planned well, it goes smoothly and becomes an enjoyable experience. The site owner gets new insight about the web or even his or her business, and the web developer gets challenged to provide a new set of solutions.

Here are 10 key questions to jump-start the planning process.

1. What is the basic goal for this website?
Does it need to generate leads? Increase sales? Support existing customers? Support partners? Reduce costs? Different goals lead to different solutions. The more specific this answer is, the more efficient the website will be.

2.  What outcome will make this website a successful project?
You won’t know how good your website is unless you know exactly what you want to get out of it. Again, try and be specific… 5 new clients per month, per week, per day? 100 new leads per month? Knowing how they website will be measured will help create the right calls to action and the overall marketing plan.

3. What is the long-term plan for the website?
Every business changes over time. Defining where you are now and where you want to go will ensure that your site handles new pages, new sections, new functionality, whatever may be needed, without having to re-design it soon after you launch.

4. Who is your audience?
You main audience should be simple to define. But the truth is that a website typically has more than one audience. We recommend defining audiences in terms of scenarios. A prospect looking for portfolio pieces to review presents a very different scenario than a vendor looking for a partner. Understand what each audience is looking for and then make it easy to find.

5. What is the right structure for your website?
How will your content be organized so visitors can find what they are looking for? The site is not for you. Don’t organize it to match it your internal structure. Put yourself in the shoes of your visitors and make the structure intuitive for them.

6. How much assistance do visitors of your website need to make a purchasing decision?
Some products and services are easier to sell than others. Identify the steps a visitor needs to make to feel comfortable with making a purchase and provide guidance along the way. This guidance needs to be available in several different ways since people make decisions differently.

7. What are your resources?
Know what your budget is, what your timing requirements are, and what your internal resources are. Hiring a web developer does not mean you don’t need to be involved. There is content to write, photography to choose, and many decisions to make as the site owner. A good web developer will make the process appear simple and easy, but you will need to be involved.

8. How much of a corporate identity do you already have?
Gather your logo files, style guides, collateral, and anything else you are already using in other mediums that is working for you and make sure the website is consistent and supports the overall strategy.

9. What is your marketing plan and budget for the website?
A website is not done when it’s launched. It’s really never done. And to have a successful website you need to spend money on it on a regular basis. It needs to be updated and marketed on an on-going basis.

10. Who will you hire to build the website for you?
Unless you have an internal web development team, you will need to hire one. This is the key decision that will make the difference between an effective website and a collection of pretty pictures and text. We ask it last here because you need to answer the first nine questions in order to know who will be the right web developer for you. In short, you want experience, commitment, and expertise. Read our post “How to choose the right web developer for your website?” for more information.