Website Creations Questionaire (Part One)

Before you begin a new website you should answer all the following questions. This questionnaire will take a bit of time to complete, but the information will help your new website meet all your needs and be an asset to your business. We have divided the questions into three pages. The first page concentrates on your Website Goals. The second page is centered around your business and may be skipped if this is a personal website. The third page features design ideas for your website. It is much easier in the long run to have all the information gathered before starting a website. The questions will also help you focus on the goals you want to achieve and make sure your new website contains all the information needed to make it a success. If your are unsure on how to answer a question or do not understand the question, just leave it blank. Not all questions may apply to all website creations.

Web Site Goal & Objective Questions:

1) List the major purposes for the web site, the reasons for building one (in order of importance, i.e. name branding, e-commerce, because that’s what everyone else is doing, etc.)?

2) Describe your vision for this site? How will visitors interact with it? Provide sketches or other mockups if possible. List any color preferences.

3) What are the specific goals for the web site (in the first 1 to 6 months, reduce customer service workload by X%, generate X volume in sales)?

4) Will you want to accept payments online? If you will be selling items directly from your website, do you have a PayPal, Google or other checkout service?

5) If you currently have a web site, how many visitors do you receive each month? What is the expectation for future traffic and is there a plan and a budget for scaling the web hosting if traffic increases beyond its capabilities? Will you have the capability to handle increased monthly costs for service? Have you planned and accounted for possible additional costs?

6) Define the criteria you will use to determine the web site’s success (i.e. Internet orders of a certain volume, web site traffic of a certain volume (this should not be used as the sole definition of success), X amount of sales as a percentage of hits, decrease in customer service costs, increase in productivity). There should be a trackable method to determine success.

7) Do you need domain registration and/or an ISP to host the site? What level of hosting will be required (this may need to be determined during the design)? Can you use a low cost service ($10/month)? Do you need a higher end outsourced service? Will you be hosting and managing your own web servers (this would typically be for large companies as the costs can be very high).

8) What process will be used to integrate the web site into the business on a daily, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. Who will manage each aspect of the web site once it is complete (i.e. e-mail management, system maintenance, new content, testing forms periodically, marketing, etc.)? Will your business be doing the editing of the site or will you want Website Creations to edit and update the site as needed. (If so please estimate how often the site will be edited or updated)

9) Please provide any additional information you feel is important for the website.