Planning Your Web Site

Where do I begin? A good place to begin is by answering these questions:

1. Why do you have or want to have a Web site?
2. What information will people look for on your site?
3. What kind of information do you want to provide your visitors?

Planning allows you to see the big picture of your project; to assign tasks to individuals, to set priorities, and to establish a timeline for the project. If you are creating a Web site for the first time or redeveloping a site, the best place to begin is to hold a meeting with individuals who will create and/or maintain the site and those who will make the final decisions about the Web site. The purpose of this initial meeting is to consider the answers to the above questions, to identify the phases of the project, to establish deadlines for each phase, to designate individuals responsible for each component of development, and to set a tentative date for the site to go live. Once the planning has been established, you can begin to write or update content and create new images.

Part of planning your site includes scheduling future updates; you do not want your site to become static. Think about this: why would someone come back to your site if it never changes? You will need to continue to update your content and images, add more pages, and check for broken links.

Building a Web site is a lot like juggling; many pieces of the project are afloat at the same time. However, you do not have to complete one piece of the Web project before moving on to the next. Furthermore, because information on the Web becomes obsolete quickly, you should have a strategy to develop your Web site and to keep all the pieces moving, so that you end up with a live Web site within a set amount of time. Otherwise, you may spend a lot of time creating Web pages which never go live and/or information becomes lost or obsolete.

The Internet is ever-changing and your Web site should continue to evolve. Once you grasp this concept, you can publish a Web site without all the pressures of making it "perfect". An imperfect Web site is better than no Web presence at all. Many near-perfect sites sit idle and unavailable to the public. Avoid letting your site join those ranks by planning your Web project and adjusting your timelines as needed. Consider going live with a smaller site until the larger one is ready.

For assistance in developing or updating your official MHC Web site:

• Email Theresa Chamberland or your LITS Liaison
• Sign up for CMS User Training