Phase 1: Get Organized

1.       Use the Web Planning worksheet and go over it carefully, discussing issues with others who will be involved with developing the site and providing content for it.

2.       Assign roles and responsibilities: choose a Web manager and designate at least one maintainer.

3.       Decide what the first content pieces will be that you will publish on your web site. Start simple. Do them well; then expand.

4.       Web manager obtains a web site account

5.       Decide what software will be used to develop the web site. (See Toolbox for links.)

6.       Set a time frame for having a web site ready to publicize. Be realistic--allow time for the "learning curve".

Phase 2: Development

1.       Design a site map.

2.       Storyboard your pages, breaking up your content into chunks and prioritize them by what order you want to get them up on the web site.

3.       Design your front door (home page) and subpage templates.

4.       Using your templates, build your web site, one section at a time according to the priorities you set earlier.

5.       Evaluate your site and perform user acceptance testing (ideally with 5 users of varying Internet abilities and experience):

a.       Are pages consistent among each other (footer, graphics, etc.) so that it is clear that all pages belong to the same web site?

b.       Is the navigation intuitive and easy to use?

c.       Does the overall look reflect the image you wish to present?

d.       Does the overall look appeal to the target audience?

e.       Will it look good on all browsers and all screen resolutions?

Phase 3: Maintenance

1.       The Web manager assigns ongoing tasks to individual maintainers.

2.       Describe how much time maintainers will spend updating the pages regularly. Schedule this time into the normal workweek for maintainers.

3.       Continue to add content to your site gradually, enhancing what is already there and adding new sections, documents, newsletters, etc.

4.       Check your web site regularly for broken links and dead ends.

5.       Check web server statistics regularly to see what pages are used the most.

Phase 4: Marketing Your Site

1.       Links from other web sites

2.       META tags needed on home page

a.       <meta name="description" content="Put 25 word description here. This will be the description of your web site that will show under the title of your home page.">

b.       <meta name="keywords" content="Put as many words, ranked in order of importance and separated by commas, here. Search engines and directories will use these words to categorize your web site.">

3.       Search engines and directories

a.       Altavista

b.       WebCrawler

c.       Excite:

d.       HotBot

e.       Lycos

f.         Northern Light

g.       Yahoo

h.       LookSmart

i.         Snap.com

j.         Go.com

k.       Google

4.       Non-Internet ways of marketing your web site

a.      Announce your site via e-mail to colleagues.

b.      Include your URL in the "signature" of all e-mail that you send out.

c.      Include URL on all printed materials you send out, including newsletters, press releases, news articles, letters, memos, and especially the inserts included with printed information requests.

d.      Mention your Web site during presentations and refer attendees there for more information. Provide URL on handout.

e.      Have the URL printed on your business cards