Website Planning

• Atom is used by Google's Blogger.
• RSS comes in several versions and can mean any of the following
  
• Rich Site Summary
• Really Simple Syndication
• RDF (Resource Description Framework) Site Summary

# posted by Les Bain @ 11:23 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• you pick a name,
  
• you enter a chat room,
  
• you join in the chat. Type to talk; read to listen.
  

• New England or Canada - rooms based on Geography.
• 20ish or 30ish - rooms based on the age of the chatters.
• Computers, Knitting - rooms based on common interest
• Dark Castle - for a fantasy world of Kings, Queens, minstrels, and Wizards.

• Smith Family - private chat room for a family to meet and chat
• Algebra 101 - for a classroom session
• Widget Marketing - for a corporate marketing meeting
• Customer Service - for vendor customer service

# posted by Les Bain @ 5:21 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• You can write your own articles
  
• You can solicit articles. Many writers are looking for places to publish in exchange for readers and a byline.
• There are websites offering free content, so you can publish your ezine and never write a thing. A search on free content will provide enough free content for many ezines.
  
• If the subscription list is large, perhaps paid ads from businesses wanting to target your readership.

• letting people subscribe (opt-in),
  
• letting people unsubscribe (opt-out),
  
• letting people change options like email address or format (text or HTML),
  
• managing bounced emails, and
• making sure that people are not subscribing with someone else's email.

• Use a paid service. A search on ezine list management will provide options.
• Use a free service which normally includes ads. An example would be Yahoo Groups, where everyone on the group receives the ezine along with Yahoo ads.
• Do it yourself. There are many software packages that do list management.
  

• Sophisticated systems provide indexes, search, and archive services.
  
• Other systems provide ways to request a back issues.
  
• Ezines can be blogged for archive. Some blogs can be updated by email, so adding the blog address to the subscription list puts the ezine on the blog and provides for archive.

# posted by Les Bain @ 8:40 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• Blogs are free, or very low cost.
  
• Blogs require very little technical knowledge.
• Blogs are fun.
• Blogs can give some value for Search Engine Optimization for minimal effort.
• Blogs are a very quick way to provide for some group collaboration.
  

• Blogs can be personal and egotistical, an individual sharing thoughts with the world.
• Blogs can be political, and in fact, political Bloggers were invited to the political conventions of both Democrats and Republicans.
• Blogs can be for groups, with each member recording progress on a project or adventure.
• Blogs can be travel logs, often with pictures.
• Blogs can contain only pictures, sometimes called a photoblog.
• Blogs can be maintained with camera phones, called a moblog (mobile blog).
  
• Blogs can be informative, containing entries for quotes, tips, recipes, or news.
  

• Blog directories,
• Blog search engines,
• Blog communities,
• Blog chat rooms,
• Blog templates and
• Blog add-ons.

# posted by Les Bain @ 6:39 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• Bob: how r u?
• Sally: fine. u?
• Bob: good.
• Bob: can I come to your office and discuss the project now?
• Sally: in 5 minutes
• Bob: great ... see you then.

# posted by Les Bain @ 1:21 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• Two students started a directory while at Stanford and then started the company Yahoo!
• Two students studied search and search engines while at Stanford and then left to start Google.

• Directories point to websites.
• Search engines point to web pages.

• Directories are lists of web sites, many times created manually by hundreds of editors.
• Search engines use programs called spiders to roam the Internet saving vast indexes to individual web pages.

• Directories would be the table of contents that pointed to chapters - websites and
• Search Engines would be the book index that points to specific pages - webpages.

• Directories would be the card catalogue and point to books - websites
• Search engines would be .... well, there is nothing comparable unless all the indexes to all the books were gathered into one huge index that pointed to book pages - webpages.

# posted by Les Bain @ 4:30 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• Yahoo - seen on the Yahoo home page www.yahoo.com and
• Open Directory - www.dmoz.com

# posted by Les Bain @ 4:26 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

"The Internet Without Search is Like a Cruise Missile Without a Guidance System." Former Lycos CEO.

• Google
• Yahoo (Altavista /AlltheWeb /Inktomi)
• Looksmart (Wisenut)
• AskJeeves (Teoma)
  
• Gigablast.

# posted by Les Bain @ 9:14 AM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• The Business or Organization
  
• The Internet and the World Wide Web
  
• The Customer

• Internet Search
  
• Directories
• Search vs. Directories
• Blogs and Blogging
  
• Web Site Hosting
  
• Internet Service Providers
  
• Domain Names
  
• eZines
  
• MultiMedia
  
• Standards
  
• Accessibility
  
• Broadband Statistics
  
• eCommerce
  

# posted by Les Bain @ 11:45 AM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• Product - the product or the service the business produces.
  
• Price - the price for the product or service, and the pricing strategy. Some common pricing strategies include
  
  • "every day low price"
    
  • "it costs more but its worth it."
    
  • "guaranteed low price"
  
  
• Place - where are the products and services distributed. Does the business provide a local service like dog walking or is it international like Amazon.
  
• Promotion - how are the products and services promoted. What mix of advertising, public relations, word-of-mouth, or search engine optimization is used to promote the products and services.

• People - the mix should include the people that make and market the products or services.
  
• Process - Define the marketing process, and then continually improve the process.

# posted by Les Bain @ 7:50 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• 65 percent do not shop on a poorly designed site - even that of a favorite brand.
• 30 percent cease offline purchases from a favorite brand if their online experience is poor.
• 30 percent of consumers reported that web site design is more important than a great product.
• Only 4 percent will shop on a poorly designed web site - and that's when the price is rock-bottom.

Survey conducted by Synovate eNation of Chicago for Genex.

# posted by Les Bain @ 10:14 AM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• Weak: I design and build websites.
• Better: I help businesses develop their online presence.
• Strong: I help small businesses make money on the Internet.

# posted by Les Bain @ 10:54 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

• What services or products does the business provide?
• Who are the potential customers and why will they purchase it from you?
• How will you reach your potential customers?
• Where will you get the financial resources to start and run your business?

The Business Plan is the foundation for the website plan. If you do not have a Business Plan, you should create one.

# posted by Les Bain @ 4:15 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

website or Web site

"A set of interconnected webpages, usually including a homepage, generally located on the same server, and prepared and maintained as a collection of information by a person, group, or organization.

Usage Note: The transition from World Wide Web site to Web site to website seems to have progressed as rapidly as the technology itself. The development of website as a single uncapitalized word mirrors the development of other technological expressions which have tended to evolve into unhyphenated forms as they become more familiar. Thus email has recently been gaining ground over the forms E-mail and e-mail, especially in texts that are more technologically oriented. Similarly, there has been an increasing preference for closed forms like homepage, online, and printout."

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

# posted by Les Bain @ 9:42 AM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

How many websites have been created? What kinds of websites have been created? Which ones need a plan?

• It is estimated that there are now over 100 million websites.
• On the Google website today it states that Google is searching 4,285,199,774 web pages.

The websites fall into all sorts of categories including the following.

• Vanity sites - personal websites of primary interest to one individual.
• Forums - websites where members can post messages and interact informally.
• Content Sites - sites designed to deliver lots of content, like Google news
• Blogs - a Web Log or journal.
• Directories - a website that provides links to other sites, like the Open Directory Project.
• Online Brochures - website which is the equivalent of a print brochure.
• eCommerce sites - designed to sell online, a good example is Amazon.

A good website plan can help any website, but the emphasis here will be on business or organization sites. That includes both profit and non-profit organizations.

# posted by Les Bain @ 8:53 PM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post

Planning is not easy. The process of thinking, analyzing, considering and weighing options is hard work.

Planning is not particularly rewarding for many, because the planning result is intangible. The planning results are the documents, the diagrams, or the drawings. It is not the tangible creation that rewards the senses. We are not so likely to call our family over to see our website plan, but we will certainly be likely to call over our family to see our website.

Planning is difficult when undertaking a project like building a website because there are usually parts of the project we do not know how to do. How are we supposed to plan something when we do not know how to do it? The only real way to figure out all the unknowns is to actually build the website.

Planning cannot anticipate serendipity. It is exciting when creating a web page to discover a technique or a process and then include that technique or process immediately into the website. When you find a script that just does the coolest thing, it is fun to add it immediately to the web site. We sometimes feel guilty that we strayed from the plan, or find the discovery process so exciting we feel we have betrayed the plan.

It is hard to know when the plan is complete. Planning can continue to greater and greater levels of detail. A colleague of mind is fond of saying the planning is done when the planning deadline is reached.

Planning creates anxiety. Projects are judged whether they come in on time and on budget. What does that really mean? It means that they were completed in the time and with the money that was planned. Project Management too often becomes the way we validate how good the plan was.

So why plan? Because creating a website will be much easier and the website will be more effective if we first create a plan. We will anticipate that planning is difficult, that we have to plan things we do not know, that serendipitous things will arise not in the plan, and that the plan will change as we go along. But to create the website we want, we will plan the website first.

# posted by Les Bain @ 1:26 AM Wizard Creek Consulting
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 by Les Bain | All Rights Reserved
0 comments | links to this post