Identify a website's style, purpose, and goals for success

- When starting a website project, there are so many things to consider. It's exciting and also overwhelming. There can be a strong desire to get started right away, and few people pause to identify three key things when starting a website project. It's easy to forget this step, but stopping to identify them will make your website project much more likely to succeed. The three key things you should identify are: Number one, the website type or style. Earlier in the course, we talked about five common website types or styles. Those are: informational websites, sales sites or landing pages, portfolio websites, e-commerce sites or online stores, and blogs or editorial websites. It's important to identify which one you're thinking of building before you get started, because each website type could require different tools, or at least tools used differently. I like to think of website projects like construction projects. You wouldn't attempt to construct a building without knowing what type of building it is. Whether that's an office tower, a ski chalet, or a coastal cottage. The building materials are all similar; metal, lumber, concrete or glass, but the way they're assembled varies greatly. It's the same with websites. The building materials are programming languages and coding protocols, and they can all be assembled differently. Make sure you pick the ones that align best with your project. Number two, website purpose. The next thing you need to consider is the purpose of the website. Now, you don't need to get philosophical or wax poetic here, but you should pause for a moment to answer this question: Why does this website need to exist? Now, I fully acknowledge that sometimes a website needs to exist because you just have to have one. If that's the case, then the purpose of the website is to be discoverable online or to appear professional when a prospective client or customer is looking you up. Whether it's to inform, entertain, educate, or sell, every website should have a purpose. Think about what your site's purpose is before you start your website project and write it down. When you're working on the site, you'll have a myriad of decisions to make. It helps to have established your website's purpose beforehand. That way, when you're faced with a tough choice, say whether to include a certain content section or not, you can ask yourself, what best serves the purpose of the site? That question often helps make decisions about website content and functionality much easier. Three, website goals. Once you define the purpose of your website, you'll also need to define its goals. The two are very closely linked, but they are technically different. The purpose of a website is often to support business goals. But website goals need to be more specific than that. For example, if a company has an overall business goal of making money, the purpose of its website could be to sell products, but selling products shouldn't be the goal of the website. I like website goals that are more specific. Actually, I like goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound, AKA SMART goals. The reason why I like SMART goals is because the level of detail involved really helps guide and keep you on track. They help establish a clear way forward so you can execute your plan and confidently say whether it was successful or not. Let's continue with this example of a website with the purpose of selling products, which supports the business goal of making money. If we state the website goal as selling products, that doesn't really help us chart a path forward. But if we state a SMART goal for the site, such as sell 20 products directly to customers on the website by December 31, that is so much more detailed. It's specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound. With that website goal, we can move forward with a plan and clearly measure whether you were successful or not after December 31. Then, you can learn from the experience and set a new goal for the next phase.