Planning your website To plan and organize your site effectively, you must do much more than determine what the site will look like and where the files will go. You need to examine the site goals and audience profiles. Additionally, you should consider your site’s navigation scheme. Careful planning before you begin site development will save you a great deal of time later. Determine your site goals Ask yourself or your client questions about the site, and write down your goals so that you remember them as you go through the design process. A list of goals helps you focus and target your website to your particular needs. The complexity of your goals affects the navigation, the media that you use, and even the appearance of your site. For example, the look and navigation of a website devoted to archeology news should be very different from that of a website devoted to selling appliances. Decide who your audience is This step may seem unnecessary, because most people want everyone to visit their website. Still, it is difficult to create a website that every person in the world can use. People around the world use various browsers, connect at various speeds, may or may not have media plug-ins, and use various types of devices to view Internet content. Because all these factors affect who uses your site, determining your target audience is a crucial step during the initial planning phase. Conceptualize the site’s navigation scheme The site navigation scheme is a map that shows how your web pages relate to one another. Specifically, it shows how users travel through your site as they click links and interact with application interfaces. After sketching your site navigation, you can present the preliminary plan to your client or to members of your group.