Describe your business in 2-3 sentences. Focus on what you do, what makes you different, and what your strongest selling points are. What are the key reasons your customers choose you instead of the competition?

Here's an example: Floribunda is a boutique florist that specializes in supplying unusual varieties of flowers to the wedding and catering trade. We create truly unique and distinctive arrangements by including colors and types of flowers that aren't available through any other florist in the tri-county area. Unlike other local florists, we have direct links with the best growers and only ever select the freshest, highest quality blooms.

Now, condense it down even further: does your business have a slogan or strapline that clearly defines what you offer in terms of uniqueness, benefits, or features? If not, you may find it useful to write one, as it will come in handy for your website. Ensure that it is no more than 10 words long, and open up thesaurus.com if you need word inspiration. Think about some of your favorite brands and the kinds of short, punchy phrases they use to communicate about their business.

The following are some examples:

List your company's brand values. If you don't have some already, think about how you would like your business to be perceived and list 4-5 descriptive words or phrases that you want people to feel about your business when they encounter your website.

Some examples are fresh, confident, down to earth, powerful, simple, rational, fun, energetic, cheeky, inexpensive, relaxed, quirky, luxurious, trustworthy, edgy, youthful, and refined.

Describe your typical customers. Pay special attention to their demographics (income, interests, gender, and age) and comfort with technology. If your website is a business-to-business site, exactly what sort of companies are you hoping to attract, and which level and type of staff members will access your site? If you have more than one type of customer, split them into primary and secondary audiences.

It may help you to think about your customer as a single individual, including his/her life experiences, job, favorite TV shows, brands, or books. How often does s/he go online, and what websites does s/he visit? In the web industry, we call this a user persona, and we always think about what this person would want or do, whenever we are developing the site.

What is the main reason that your target customers would come to your website? What action do you want them to perform? If there is more than one desired outcome, please prioritize them.

Some examples include buying a product, joining your online community, downloading a brochure, sending an enquiry, or calling your company.

What are the main goals you have for your website? What business objectives are you hoping to meet through this project? If this website will be replacing your old site, what do you want to be different/better about this one?

Some examples include generating sales, increasing leads, improving brand awareness, and reducing emails to your customer support team.

Thinking about your customers and the primary purpose described in the previous section, list the functions that your website will need to perform, in order of priority.

Some examples are: online shop, newsletter signup, RSS feed, and calendar of events.

Briefly summarize the source, volume, and type of content for your site. Where will the content (text, images, downloadable files, videos) come from? Approximately how much content do you have in terms of number of pages? Is it available now? If not, when will it be ready? If it's coming from an existing source, will it need to be adjusted in any way to make it fit for your website?

Are there any pre-existing systems or tools that your website will need to integrate with or link to?

Some examples include credit card payment gateways, social media sites, and email newsletter systems.

Briefly summarize how the site will be managed. Who will be responsible for keeping the site updated? How often will it be updated? If you will have a blog, who will moderate the comments? If you will have an online shop, how will the fulfillment and inventory process be handled?

Who will be involved in this project, and what role will each person play? Even if you are doing this on your own, it's useful for you to note the project roles, because you will need to allow time for them in your schedule.

Some role examples are: final decision maker, content provider, proofreader, tester, designer, copywriter, cost approver, and project manager.

When do you want your website to go live? Are there any key dates to bear in mind (for example, big meetings or holidays)? Setting a realistic timeline is important, and the amount of time your project will take depends on many variables. When setting your target date, review what you have written in your plan so far, as follows:

Remember to factor in your own availability or any other restrictions. Based on all of this, you should be able to come up with an estimated date. Now, add 30 percent extra time to this estimate, as contingency. Put this date in your calendar… in pencil.

What is your budget for this project? You will need to budget for your Squarespace subscription, domain name (Squarespace includes one for free if you pay your subscription annually), and you might also want to set aside some money for things such as stock photo licenses and logo design. Remember, you don't need web hosting with Squarespace, so you won't need to budget for that.

Just as an architect studies existing buildings and draws upon them for inspiration, I encourage you to start your research by looking at other websites to find out what you like and what you think would work well for your target audience.

When looking at other websites, remember the four components of a website: structure, content, function, and aesthetics. If you find a site you like, mentally break it down into these components and try to figure out exactly why you like the site. Which of the four components are really working well on the site?

Play close attention to the following:

Don't just look at your competitors' sites; doing so means you will likely focus too much on content alone. Try to expand your research into other categories. After all, your target customers are probably visiting a wide variety of websites.

Whereas looking at other websites is an activity that can help you narrow down your preferences, looking at things such as colors, fonts, and imagery can quickly become overwhelming and seemingly endless due to the sheer volume of choices available. We'll tackle these elements in earnest in Chapter 5, Editing, and Arranging Content in Your Web Pages, and Chapter 8, Tailoring Your Site's Look and Feel, where you'll be introduced to some resources and tools to help make things easier. For now, just make a note of any aesthetic elements you like as you go along, and be rest assured that we'll do more research and hone things down when we start building your site.

If you don't have a logo yet, you have a few options:

If you already have a logo or will be sourcing one, it's important to get a copy in the right format:

The dimensions and resolution are not as important as the other formatting options, as you can adjust the size in Squarespace's image editor later, if necessary.

If your company has brand colors, you will need to get the colors in the RGB or hex format. RGB (red, green, blue) is the method that backlit screens such as computer monitors or smartphones use to present colors. Hex (hexadecimal) color is a 6-digit alphanumeric way of presenting RGB colors, used in web design. Squarespace can use either RGB or hex colors.

The following is an example:

If you don't have brand colors or you need to source additional colors, we'll do so in Chapter 8, Tailoring Your Site's Look and Feel.

Once we start building the site, you'll be able to choose fonts from the 300+ fonts available within Squarespace, but some companies have specified fonts in their branding guidelines—and some require paid licenses for use. If your brand includes fonts such as these, you might need to source similar alternatives from the fonts that Squarespace offers, unless your brand uses Typekit fonts, which can be integrated and used on your site. We'll cover fonts in more detail in Chapter 8, Tailoring Your Site's Look and Feel. For now, make note of any special fonts associated with your brand, and find out about any licensing issues so that you'll have plenty of time to resolve them before the go-live date.