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?


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Incognito Premium
Awesome resource Jay, thanks!
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Kyle Premium Plus
Planning is an important step in the actual development of your site, whether it is a relative or absolute site...in most cases, it will likely be a site targeting a niche. Get your domain, research the audience, then architect your site on paper or within an online document. This will lead to much more efficiency and ultimately site success.

Great piece here Jay!
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jatdebeaune Premium
Absolutely fantastic Jay. Thank you. I'm printing the whole tutorial to keep by my side. I just reviewed the recording of the Friday WAbinar and loved it. Been ruminating on a project for a while, thinking it through. Your tutorial is helping a great deal.
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Labman Premium Plus
Thanks for the awesome rehash of your WAbinar. The more times I look at this the closer I'll be to getting it done. Thing is, I've had this in the back of my mind for a while now. Just needed this sort of thing to codify the project. Thanks!
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Carson Premium Plus
Awesome tutorial Jay! This is going to help many people learn about authority sites, and decide if one is something they are interested in building. Authority sites take time to build but the rewards are many!
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