Plan a Web Strategy

Craft a Mission Statement

1. What products or services will your site provide?

Our site will provide information regarding ecommerce educational seminars and consulting services.  Seminar information will include dates and times of seminars and a sign up form.

2. What elements are of primary importance?

The primary importance of the site is to explain ecommerce consultation services and seminars.

3. Indicate elements that are of secondary importance:

Secondary elements include schedule of seminars, signup sheet, and contact information.

4. Write one or two sentences that summarize your site’s purpose:

My sites purpose is to provide information to prospective clients and to obtain prospects via search engine optimization.

5. Craft those sentences into a rough mission statement:

Our mission is to educate our clients in order to improve their ecommerce selling.  We want to help our clients exploit their hidden opportunities and talents in order to be successful.

Define Your Goals

1. What are the areas in which you define goals?

Enrollment in seminars

Consultation sales

2. For each area, list your specific goals:

Enrollment in seminars – Maximize the number of visitors who sign up for eBay education seminars

Consultation sales – Sell one on one consulting time and provide a quality educational experience.

3. What are the target dates for your goals?

6 months after launching.      

4. List the values for each of your long term and short-term goals:

Enrollment in seminars & consultation sales – increase by 20% after 6 months

Isolate Your Niche

1. Which sites do you consider to be competitors?

Milo Design/Going1nce:   www.going1nce.com...

As Was:   www.aswas.com

2. After exploring each competitor’s site, list their strengths and weaknesses:

Going1nce

Strengths: Offers design services

Weaknesses: Discusses eBay consultation, however does not offer seminars or one on one education.

As Was

Strengths: established, also offers design services.

Weaknesses: Ugly website, overpriced.

3. Are there any product gaps?  If so, what are they?

Although both competitors offer design consulting, we feel that by beginning with specializing solely in ecommerce consulting we will provide a more educational, satisfying service.

4. What audience segment does each competitor serve?

Competitors target anyone who is interested in selling online.

5. Craft a positioning statement based on your feelings:

Our site should position itself to attract a variety of customers.  It should be easy to use and understand so that basically anyone interested in selling online will find its services useful.  We should exploit search engine optimization as much as possible so that our site is easy to find.

Define Your Brand Identity

1. Visit a commercial or large-scale commercial Web site.  How is the logo integrated throughout the site?

The logo is usually present on every page in the top left corner.

2. After isolating the color palette, identify any unique typography:

The banner is present on the top of every page.

3. Based on their branding effort, what do you consider the personality of the site to be?

The site is informative and easy to navigate.

4. What adjectives describe your site’s personality?

Our site is educational, interactive, professional, and profitable.

5. Craft a site or company name that reflects your key attributes or site purpose:

Raefield Web Consultations

http://www.raefieldwebconsultations.com

6. Designate a unique color palette for your brand.  What does it look like?

Navy, gray, and white.

Define User Goals

1. Make a list of potential user groups:

New eBay sellers

Current eBay sellers

2. What tasks will the user want to accomplish for each group?

Sellers will visit our site to learn about our services.

3. What is the most important site content for each user group?

Our services and contact information.

4. List the relative importance of each user group:

Both groups are equally important.

Create User Personas

1. Create one persona for each user group you anticipate:

New sellers: Someone who has never sold on eBay before, however has items they would like to sell and needs guidance from start to finish with the selling process.

Current sellers: Existing eBay business looking to increase their success rates.

2. What is the name and profession of each persona?

Part time or full time sellers.

3. What are the relevant demographic details for each persona?

Relevant details include being computer literate and whether or not the client has sold on eBay previously.

4. Are all possible user groups represented through your personas?  If not, create more:

Yes.

Create User Scenarios

1. Sketch out a sample session for each persona:

A customer would visit our site looking for consultation services.  They would view details about one on one consultations and details about seminars and choose which option is best for them.

2. How would the user go about completing specific tasks?  Provide details:

The user will visit the site and browse the information provided.  They can click links for seminars and one on one conultations to obtain information.  If interested in attending our seminar, the customer would fill out the form which will be submitted.  They may also veiw information about our company.

Isolate Site Components

1. What is your initial content wish list?

• Refer to the User Goals section of the plan and strategy

 2. Briefly, what is the purpose of each page?

• Refer to the User Goals section of the plan and strategy

3. List any existing content that can be used on the site:

N/A

4. What new content needs to be created?

• Home page
• Graphics
• Pages
• Seminar Form

5. What are the functionality requirements?

Ability to update site content without impacting site availability

6. What technology will you be using?

• HTML & CSS (May use Dreamweaver)
• Graphics editor

7. What will the browser and OS support include?  What plug-ins will be required?

• Internet Explorer 4 or higher, Netscape 3 or higher, Firefox 1.0 or higher
• Windows, Mac OS, Linux

8. Specify the server support needed:

• High speed internet connection and ISP
• Public IP address
• Registration of the domain name
• Secure and reliable hosting services