Each part in this series will start with an explanation of jargon associated with this step of the development process.

Jargon – Site content

Site content is the phrase you will hear throughout the development of your web site. It refers to the information contained within your site. At this stage of the planning process, the content should only be referring to information not functionality. Use this time to determine what information you want displayed on your site.

Determining what you need in your site

Many developers and site designers often say that your site should be an online brochure. This is WRONG! If your site is the same as your brochure, you are wasting your money! Your site should provide meaningful detailed information about your company, services, and products. There is nothing more frustrating to a consumer or client than going to a site and not being able to get questions answered. In fact, many people will simply look elsewhere when they can’t get simple answers from a web site.

This is not the time to decide on layout or site design in terms of graphics, logos, pictures, etc. There is always a tendency to get caught up in these things early on. All I can say is STAY FOCUSED. If your conversations or planning become directed toward design you need to take a step back and remember, this is only content planning.

You can get started in determining your site content by following some simple steps. Throughout this process you need to keep in mind that, if organized and planned properly, your site can be no different than a client actually walking into your office or talking to you on the phone. Take some time to plan your content using the following steps:

1. Plan the areas of your site.
   • The areas of your site are the highest levels of your web site. Typically you will see sites broken up into areas such as: home, products, services, etc. It is a good idea to keep the number of areas in your site small. This will make for simplified navigation. So let’s use a bike shop as an example:

   I am an owner of a small bike shop. I obviously know that I am going to have a home page. I also know that I am going to provide a page that contains information regarding the products that I sell. My shop also provides many services for our customers like bike repair and maintenance. This can be placed in a services area. My bike shop also provides a lot of information pertaining to local events and races so I have decided to have an events area as well. . I believe that all my information can be placed into one of these areas so in order to keep the number of areas to a minimum, I will stop here. I have an email address and a 1-800 number but I have decided that they will be placed in the top portion of every page instead of dedicating an entire area to contact information. For larger organizations, you might require an area dedicated to containing specific contact information for individuals in your company

2. Plan your home page.
   • Your home page is the most critical of all pages. It must have just enough information to spark interest without being overwhelming. Let’s stick with the bike shop as an example.

   I have decided to use my home page to display current sale information as well as any other specials I have running. This will prove to be a good way to get visitors to click through to other areas of my site as well as provide important information within the first few seconds of a visit. I am also going to provide information pertaining to some featured products. For this type of a business it is not a good idea to put a lot of company history, etc on the home page. Most of my visitors know what my business does and would be quickly turned off by a home page containing a company bio.

3. Plan each area.
   • As I stated earlier, I will have an area for products, services, and events along with my home page. Let me got into a little detail for each area.
     • Products – my products can be broken down into categories so I would like to give my visitors the ability to view the different product categories on this page. I am also going to provide featured products and sale information on this page. Each of my categories will have its own sub-page from this area and each product will have its own sub-page from the category page.
     • Services – my services area will be set up a lot like my products page. Often services will fall into categories as well so I will follow the same structure as the products area. I will have a sub-page for each service category and a sub-page from the category for each service in that category.
     • Events – I have decided to make the main area of my events area a calendar. I will also have a break down of events by location.
4. Write your content.

   • This is the hard part. If you are not good at writing, you might want to consider hiring a freelance content writer to help you. You MUST be the one providing the content. You know your business better than anyone so don’t leave it up to someone else to provide all the content on your site. Now that you have the areas of your site outlined, you can get a more detailed with that outline by providing specific information for each area. The most important thing to keep in mind here is BE DETAILED. You can always decide to leave something out later.

     It is best if you do all this in a word processing program so that it can be easily moved into your web site later. This should also save you money if you decide to hire someone else to develop your site. I guarantee they will ask for all information in electronic format.

Don’t skimp on this phase of your site development. It is by far the most important other than usability (layout/look and feel). You should write the content, read it, re-read it, and make adjustments where necessary. I suggest you have a friend or colleague read through your content and make suggestions. What seems great to you might not to someone else.

Good luck with your content creation! Check back soon for the next part in the series where I will help you to decide whether you should develop your site yourself or hire a developer.

Aaron davis is the founder of PrayerChain Software, LLC. He has been a web/application developer for more than 12 years. His specialty is .NET development with C# and SQL Server. PrayerChain is about to launch their new site as well as Web Framework 2.0. PrayerChain Software develops custom application frameworks designed to aid in rapid web/application development. http://www.prayerchainsoftware.com