Over the years I’ve noticed a tendency for folks to build websites out of order. By that I mean that sometimes they will build before they plan, or choose a particular technology without thought to their overall goals. Your website will never achieve your goals if you don’t know what your goals are and adding flash to a website doesn’t automatically make it “cool.”   With this in mind, here is a procedural list that I recommend when developing a website.  Certainly there are many details that could be changed depending on your particular circumstance, but the underlying premise of planning and ordered development should stand up in most situations.  Please note that all steps must always support the overall site goals. 

1. Determine site goals
2. Determine general communication that needs to take place to achieve the site goals
3. Develop online marketing strategy (search engines, social networking, etc.)
4. Develop specific content and logical grouping of this information
5. Determine specific technologies to be used to present content
6. Determine the graphical needs to achieve your desired goals with your specific audience
7. Develop the graphic design
8. Build out the site shell and develop interactive programming
9. Implement content in site
10. Proof site and take it public
11. Implement off-site online marketing plan
12. Implement regular site updates and maintenance
13. Analyse results, modify approach as necessary