This 1st phase is all about determining what your website will do and who is it for.

When defining the scope of the web project, think about the 5 W's
Who, What, Where, When and Why.

Who is the site for?

Determine who the target audience is and what type of person they are. Knowing your demographic will help you map out the website.

What is the site about?

This can be encompassed in a tag or slogan with your site. Imagine if someone asked about your site and you have 10 seconds to pitch your site and what exactly it does.

Where will the content come from?

Figure out who will primarily write the content for the site. There are a variety of options including:
* Writing your own content
* Guest authoring
* Community authoring
* Combination of all
Obviously this may change down the road as your site becomes more successful, but think about this for the start of the site.

When will the site be accessed?

This is associated with your demographic and learning about who your audience is. Determining what time of the day you think the site will be accessed most frequent, will give you an idea as to when content additions will be done.

For example: If you are creating a site about 'being a night owl', the you can assume that people will visit your site in the wee hours of the night and want to see fresh content each time your regular visitors come back.

Why do they want to visit your site?

If you get inside your audience's head and learn why they want to visit your site, then this will make your site planning so much easier.

Think about it this way.. why do you want to visit WA so often?