Sensis® Strategy Paper – Planning a Business Web Site – July 2003
Abstract
In the few years since the Internet became a commercial reality, it has posed many new challenges to business. Not only has it demanded that we re-assess many of the ways we do business, but it has forced on us the need to become accustomed to a growing list of new skills. Not long ago, issues such as e-commerce, systems integration, information architecture and content management were irrelevant and unknown to most businesses. Today, they are common (39% of Australian SMEs surveyed have a web site 1 ), increasingly important and often complex challenges that must be confronted in order to build and defend competitiveness. Even the most rudimentary web site imposes a steep learning curve on managers as they seek to maximise their return on investment and competitive edge.

Okay, so you’ve made the decision to go online. What’s next? This paper seeks to help you plan your web site development project.

Topics include:

• The five phases of web site evolution
• Defining online strategy
• Web site development options
• Architecture
• Content planning
• Content collection