Most businesses fail to plan for online success. Knowing your purpose, audience, and uniqueness are the first steps to developing a successful web site. Follow these three steps to position your web site for Internet profits.

Step 1: Determine Your Purpose

The first step in planning a web site is to determine what you want to accomplish. Do you want to sell products and services, find new customers, generate leads, establish credibility, or improve customer service?

The purpose of your web site will affect its content and design. Depending on your goal, you may need an opt-in form, articles, a sales letter, product information, pictures, a secure online order form, and a shopping cart.

Step 2: Define Your Ideal Customers and Their Needs

Many web sites are trying to attract everybody. Don't make this mistake. Your web site will be more profitable when focusing on your ideal prospects who are likely to buy your products or services. Ask the following questions to create a profile of your ideal customers.

- Who wants or needs your products or services? - What is the age range, gender, profession, industry, income level, and education of your ideal customers? - What are your customers' wants, needs, and concerns? - What problems can you solve for your customers? - What problems do your products and services solve for them? - Why will they come to your site? - What information do they want? - Are most of your customers computer literate? - What computer monitor do they have? - What software and browser are they using? Do they connect to the Internet with a slow modem or a fast connection such as cable or DSL?

After defining your ideal customers, target your web site's content, message, and design directly to them. Here are some examples of how your audience affects the design of your web site. Make your text large if you're targeting seniors. Use a conservative design if your prospects are accountants. Make your design colorful for children. Avoid video and audio if yourcustomers have slow computers and Internet connections.

To target your content to your ideal customers, tell right away what your web site is about and what's in it for them. If they don't read further, they were not prospects. Attract your target audience with a benefit-oriented headline and provide valuable, useful, and interesting information your prospects are interested in.

Step 3: Demonstrate Your Uniqueness

Emphasize your uniqueness to make your web site stand out and set you apart from your competition. Attract your audience with a benefit that is different from other web sites. What is your distinct advantage? What separates you from your competition? What is distinctive about your offer?

Visiting competing web sites will give you ideas about content, design, and features you may need for your web site. Then develop a site that stands out and distinguishes you from them.

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