GETTING STARTED> Purpose : Audience : Content : Image : Planning

Purpose

This may sound a bit basic. After all, you've got this far - so obviously you want a website. But think about it. By listing all of the reasons you want to start a site, you will be better able to analyse what content needs to be in it and how you can bring that content together into a cohesive site.

For example, you might have the purposes of:

• promoting your town to tourists
• networking businesses and community organisations within your town
• gaining you web-building experience
• advocating for disadvantaged or non-profit groups in your community

If you try to cram too much into a site, it may get unmanageable and hard to navigate. Maybe you should split what you want to do into more than one site. Keeping a sharp focus is really important with a site - the web is the ultimate extreme of niche marketing.

That's not to say you can't have a comprehensive site, but make sure you have an overall theme, something that defines the site. With the above example, maybe you could use a "virtual village" theme, based around a map of the town. Businesses, clubs and local attractions could be clicked on for more detail, leading to separate self-contained sites if they warrant it. Perhaps there could be a signpost that leads to a full sitemap, or a phonebox that leads to a local contact directory. The theme of the virtual village could bring together a diverse range of purposes, acting as the hub of a complex network.