This is the first of a series of Small Box blogs devoted to Web Site Project Management, check back each Monday for more about the Small Box Method for your Web Campaign.

Businesses and individuals looking to create a web site would be well advised to use a systematic approach to developing a website. Today I will be sharing with you an overall approach that works well for 90% of the work we do. The web is full of poorly designed sites that need to be redone as soon as they are launched costing your business more money and not capitalizing on the complete opportunity of defining yourself and your business.

Web Site Planning - If you haven't started by articulating the goals of the site then you haven't done it right. Simply knowing you need a site does nothing to define your goals. Start with a budget, timeline, site map, and list of features you require. Features may include descriptions of your services, products, staff, and promotions for your site. We can help advise you on other ideas which are easy to implement based on our year of experience planning hundreds of sites.

Web Site Development - This is the design and programming phase. A well designed site executed with content management is the standard approach we take for most of our clients. Small Box designs use a combination of new and existing imagery and the site map we work on together to generate an attractive interface for your web audience. Most people are essentially looking for the same thing: a site that uses clean designs, user friendly navigation, and performs well in search engines. Programming in PHP and MySQL provides a site that can be easily extended without proprietary software. These sites are the hallmarks of our work.

Making sure that all the design and programming elements occur for all major browsers is a key to having a site that performs against all the standard measures. Every site we launch goes through a dual review, first according to our internal checklist and then after an exhaustive review between us and our clients.

Digital Business Integration - Now that you have a website, how are you going to use it? The biggest complaint we hear from businesses and individuals is that they can't DO anything with their site, it simply sits there and without them understanding it, it becomes a business liability with more expense than usefulness. We provide thorough training and documentation of the website in a single document that provides all the information you need and more. It also includes insight into each decision that was made and a checklist of services we have provided.

Web Site Promotion - A beautiful site means very little without the necessary push to get it in front of the world. In a very broad sense this is called Internet Marketing, but is actually made up of several tasks related to Search Engine Marketing, External Link Building, Viral Marketing, and Site Promotion.

In addition we provide services in offline promotion as well, including graphic services like print ads, brochures, and signage. Media services are best contracted out to third party firms but Small Box can work with these producers to make sure your message is well integrated between your online efforts. Finally, Small Box can repurpose this content through online promotions so you get the best bang for your buck.

Web Site Analysis and Evaluation - How did we do? What are the next steps? These are questions whose answers can be found through a thorough review of usability, web analytics, and surveys of your customers and target audience.

That's what 360 Internet and Marketing is all about, because then, if we have done a good job, we get to do it all again and we know exactly what to do.

This blog is really only scratching the surface. Every Small Box clients has special needs and goals. In the weeks to come I will be providing more detail on each of these broad tasks to help you better define your own project. Feel free to add your comments which I will answer personally and if you need advice or assistance in defining your own web project, feel free to call me directly at 317-254-0932.