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With any good business plan, the defining of a primary goaland primary audience goes hand in hand with deciding whatproduct or service you will market. However, with the floodof entrepreneurs to the Internet, I have watched an interestingreverse trend occur.That trend goes something like this. Pick a product or service,get a domain name, build a web site and then figure out whowill buy it.I love the Internet and the ability it affords to even theplaying field between the big corporation and the homeentrepreneur, but the fact remains that sound businesspractices such as defining the primary goal and audience worksthe same on the Internet as they do off-line.For this reason, it is a necessity to do your research beforeone line of code is written, a domain name is chosen or asingle graphic is created. Its what I call "Defining beforedesigning."Why do I emphasize this in a series of articles about webdesign?Simply because every aspect of designing your web site willflow out of the definition of your primary goal and primaryaudience. If you have not done your homework in this area,you can be sure your online venture will be like a ship withno engine or sails, merely tossed about by the whims of theocean.Now onto the business of defining. Right up front Ill tellyou that "making money" is a lousy primary goal. Making moneyis a result of setting and sticking to a good primary goaland properly defining a primary audience.Here are three elements to consider in your definitions.1. A PRIMARY GOAL IS SINGULAR - It is just that, a primarygoal, not goals. Im not saying that you cant have secondarygoals, but the key is picking a singular primary goal becausethats your beacon, your cornerstone in the design, withoutit, the site crumbles.Many new entrepreneurs approach the web with a "one-stop"approach. Im going to sell everything Ive ever beeninterested in to all people everywhere.Its understandable how this happens. In offline marketing,you are limited to space, be it a 15 second television spotor a two sided brochure. The bottom line is that you havelimited space to sell yourself and by necessity, thisnarrows the focus.The Internet brings the new element of limitless spaceto advertise. You really have more space than you willever need, so the tendency is to say something like, "Inaddition to this marketing pamphlett, I think Ill sellmemberships to this timeshare vacation program, an affiliatehosting program and maybe even this VCR since I just got aDVD player. Keep in mind that your web site is not a garagesale.It feels good to dream you can sell everything to everyone,but the truth is youll be more succesful selling one thingvery well to a specific group of people.2. A PRIMARY GOAL IS SPECIFIC - I could define my primarygoal as "Selling books on the Internet" but does thatreally help me make and decisions about what should be onmy web site?I could define it as "Selling books using real-time processingon the Internet". Its getting better, at least I now knowthat I will need to get a merchant account, digitalcertificate, SSL and a shopping cart on my site to make"real-time" a reality.I could define it as "Selling fishing books using real-timeprocessing on the Internet". Hey now we are getting somewhere,or are we?I could define it as "Selling fly-fishing books using real-timeprocessing on the Internet."This could go on and it should. The more specific you can be,the better.3. A PRIMARY GOAL IS INSEPARABLE FROM THE PRIMARY AUDIENCEThe primary goal examples listed so far are missing atleast one element. The audience. A primary goal andprimary audience are inseparable. Lets add a primary audienceto the definition we have so far."Selling fly-fishing books to fishermen using real-timeprocessing on the Internet."So we added our audience, fishermen. Of course this isstill a vague and poor definition for a specific goal.To cut to the chase, let me just finish this with whatI believe would be a good final definition for the primarygoal and audience for our fly-fishing book salesman."To sell fly-fishing books authored by Randall Kaufmannto fly-fishing hobbyists who have subscribed to at leastone fly-fishing magazine within the past year. These bookswill be sold solely over the Internet using real-timeprocessing and an automated fulfillment center."Yes, it is quite okay to be this specific, you can alwaysapproach wider audiences at a later date after you havebeen successful with smaller ones.I trust that you can see how this will assist you as youbegin to design a web site. Instead of approaching yourweb site as a blank canvas that you have to creativelyfill, you have a very specific course of action.From the definition above, I can see several things thatwill be a must for this web site.1. A bio for Randall Kaufmann, who he is and why his booksare the best on fly-fishing. A picture of Randall Kaufmann.2. A collage of the major fly-fishing magazines with a captionthat reads something like "If you enjoyed your subscriptionto these, wait until you get your hands on this fly fishingbook".3. Lots of keyword content full of fly-fishing, RandallKaufmann book titles and the fishing magazine names.4. A graphical layout that captures the beauty and peaceof a running river, the fly-fishermans paradise.The defining of a primary goal and audience sets the tonefor your entire web site design. Give your web site designand your business the preparation it demands and it willdemand much less from you in the future.

About the Author

Ralph Hilliards WordNet University is turning beginnersinto web designing fools! Download the sample video FREE.http://www.wordnetuniversity.com/getresponse/You learn visually. No Books, No Programming. Watch andHear as a site is developed before your very eyes.