Start with your why

There are many reasons to build a website. Every day, I speak with clients whose needs couldn’t be more different. Some are professionals in their industry and looking to develop a space where they can share their successes and accomplishments. For some, a website is the first step when striking out as an entrepreneur. Others work for an existing company or non-profit organization and want to create a new home page or test an idea. Each of these approaches takes a completely different form with regard to content and page structure.

Beyond just choosing a platform, the first step to building a website is to consider why you’re doing it in the first place. It’s a simple question: “What do I want users to do when they get to my website?” It seems almost too basic, but there are thousands of ways to answer that question. Here are a few examples:

• I want people to contact me
• I want users to buy something from me
• I...