A set of (hopefully thought-provoking) questions to ask yourself when you get that “I want a website” feeling.

Whaddaya mean, “a website”?

Don’t be offended. It’s just that different people mean different things when they say “I want a website”.

Perhaps it’s a database-driven site. Perhaps it’s a site that does something, like, you know, clever stuff. Maybe you just want a blog, or a “presence site” - just somewhere on the web that represents your organisation.

This page is my list of questions that I’d ask myself on starting.

Do you really need a website?

Seriously. How much can you do on Facebook pages/Google+/Flickr/smugmug/Twitter? If you want to get an online community going, and your audience is on Facebook, consider, er, Facebook.

What’s the site’s purpose?

Here are some common raisons d’être. More than one may apply:

• sell something. (eCommerce)
• inform the world or spread a message. Maybe you plan to email out links and hope for clicks.
• engage people. Slightly different from above - perhaps you envision comment threads or an online community.
• collect something. Cat photos have been done but you might want to make a website highlighting every example of something in the world.
• show up in google. Unlikely to be an aim in itself (unless this is a pure vanity site or some sort of SEO experiment) but strongly related to all of the above.
• presence. Just something to put at “www.your-domain-name.com”
• custom clever shizzle

Who is your target/likely audience, and how will it/they behave?

Target audience is likely to be defined by the purpose of the site, but it’s worth thinking about. If your target audience is likely to visit all at once and you’re expecting millions of hits per day, that needs some planning ahead of time.

What sort of devices do you need to consider?

More often than not the answer to this is “well, everything”. Consider how your site might behave or appear differently on different devices (mobile phones, tablets, desktop computers). Can you simplify your design so it works on all of them?

How often will the site change? How many different editors?

If it’s just you, or if the site will pretty much stay the same from day-to-day, hosting is much simpler. You probably don’t need a full-blown Content Management System (CMS). On the other hand, if you do need a CMS, the features it offers need to match your requirements. Beware of overkill.

Who else (if anyone) has a stake in your website?

Identify “stakeholders”. I cringe as I write that word. Sorry.

Can you sketch out your idea on a piece of paper?

Get it out of your head and it makes it much easier for us web programmer types to understand what you’ve got in mind. Pencils are good here.

Do any design constraints/resources already exist?

For example, you already have a logo, and the rest of the site needs to match its colour scheme. Or you’re dead set on a certain font, graphic or image/photo. If resources already exist, gather them together.

Can you collect three links to websites that look close to what you have in mind, or that you really like?

Just like sketching out on paper, this helps the idea emerge from “your mind’s eye”.

Do you need users and passwords?

They increase complexity but sometimes, you gotta have logins. Perhaps part of your site needs to be accessible only to certain members. Plan this now.

What types of content will the site have?

Tick all that apply:

• images
• words
• videos
• downloadable files (e.g. PDFs)
• calendars
• sound/music

Do you want to know how many people are visiting (analytics)?

Are you OK with Google Analytics?

If you’re getting me or someone else to build this, what sort of feedback loop would work?

Fast and iterative works best for me, but not too many iterations. Are you going to be able to commit to decisions and frequently review new ideas/builds?

Finally, some nitty-gritty questions which I ask at the start of helping someone out

This section contains some recommendations and referral links. Alternatives exist. I don’t recommend them!

• Have you already registered a domain? Use domainr to search and hover.com to register.
• Do you already have hosting somewhere? Email? Free hosting exists (see this site for an example). Hosting companies vary wildly in their ease of use/value for money/commitment to quality. I recommend Webfaction.
• Are you OK paying a small monthly amount to ease the hassles of backup, maintenance, hosting?

A few ideas for simple website hosting, some of which I’ve kicked the tyres, some I haven’t: droppages, Squarespace, Cloudcannon, Github pages.

Other people’s thoughts

A (growing) collection of links to similarly thought-provoking pages on the web.

• Asking why - Signal vs Noise blog. Focused on personal sites for tecchies, I’d say, but asks some powerful questions.