Reading:
Your web site - what you need
view - Your web site - drawing up a specification
view - What can an 'active' web site do for you?
view - Database-driven websites
view - Hidden 'extras' of e-commerce
view - E-commerce on the cheap

What You Need

If you're contemplating your first website, what do you need to consider?

Write it down
Firstly, take some time to jot down ideas on a piece of paper.
Answer briefly the following questions:

- Why do I need a website?
- Who are the visitors I expect?
- Who are the visitors I'd rather not have? (Seriously, on a commercial website if you put all your pricing up, or your company structure/systems, are you giving too much away to competitors?)
- Do I want to impress and attract general visitors, or do I want to give information as quickly and easily as possible?
- What content must be presented on the site?
- If you intend to have regularly updated content, have you got a plan on how/who will do this?
- How will you tell people about the site?
- What about the domain name?
- Web hosting

There are no 'correct' answers, but if you have profiled the reasons for your website, the content, and the type of visitors you want, then you are already a long way down the path to creating a specification.

So why do you need a website? Some possible answers:

- To give information to people about a product, a political issue, a business or organisation, etc. This could include giving 'help' information or Frequently Asked Questions so you get fewer time-consuming phone calls.
- To sell products online via real-time credit card transaction or to get orders that will be paid with cheque etc
- To facilitate offline sales - getting people into a shop by presenting detailed info on a product
- To communicate with an international audience
- To collect information (For instance to get customer feedback, contact emails, electronic signatures on a petition)
- To help others communicate - through electronic forums or by presenting contact details

Look at the content you want to put in the site. It might include, on a commercial site: A list of products; a description of the company; contact details; pricing; staff etc.
Or on an NGO site: a description of the group; contact details; various categories of significant information; activities etc.
Try to organise all this content into sections and subsections that will make sense to a visitor to your site.

Be aware that if you are planning to keep your site up-to-date with new content, you need someone to produce this content and put it on the site. Be realistic about how you can acheive this - giving visitors the expection of weekly updates and not following through doesn't look good. Make sure the person you allocate to doing updates (especially if it is you) is given time for doing them. If there is not a technically competent person available to do updates, consider outsourcing it, or using active update pages that you can do through the web browser.

Will you need extra, 'active' features? Because these generally involve some extra programming, you'll be paying more and might want to prioritise or consider a 2 stage development, with some of the 'active' parts in the 2nd stage.
Active features could include:

- guestbook
- autoresponding to emails
- live forums
- chat rooms
- Send an email - "Tell someone about this website"
- Send an electronic postcard
- Fill-in forms - order forms etc
- Updateable database (products, staff, articles etc)
- Shopping carts
- site-specific search engine

Note that all these components may have a bearing on the type of webhosting and the cost.

Now, try and draw a 'page map' which shows all the sections and subsections in a 'tree' or block diagram. You can connect various sections to show links that are required on the site.
If you are planning on having a lot of content (equivalent to over 100 pages) we might want to look at page-naming conventions and how to provide access in the most efficient way. Databasing the content may also be an option.

Visual Elements
Now you might want to look at any graphics you need to have on the website.
For instance, you probably have a logo, some pictures of staff, products or facilities, perhaps a map or illustrations that go with articles. Do you need to scan documents or pictures, or get photographs taken?
Do you have an art department that will want to work on the website 'look'? Or an existing visual profile that should be replicated by the website - organisation fonts and colours?

Do you have a domain name already? If not, you need to choose one that is:

- available
- descriptive of what your organisation is or does
- consise and memorable
- preferably doesn't raise copyright issues

Publicity
Lastly, start thinking about the strategies you'll use for publicising the new website:

- Do you have an existing mailing list?
- Can you add the website address to your printed stationery, business cards etc?
- Make sure all your electronic stationery (email/documents etc), future advertising will be updated with the address. This is one of the cheapest ways to market your site but often overlooked.
- Can you get free publicity? Start planning a press release that can go to people/media in the field you are in.
- Consider how useful search engines will be for you. If you are very localised then use the appropriate search engines (eg NZ-based). There is no point getting a listing in a German business search engine if you are only selling product in New Zealand.
- Can you get other web sites to link to you?
- Are there ways you can get others talking about you or the website?
- Metatags are html tags used on the website pages that can give extra information to search engines. You'll need to provide a short description and a series of about 15 - 20 keywords that can be built into the pages.

Well, if you have done all this, you're well on the way to creating a specification for your website.