The first thing anyone should ask themselves when beginning to plan their website is... What is the goal? Is your goal to generate a phone call? Is it to make a sale directly on your website? Is it to capture an email address? Whatever the case the first thing you need to decide is the the goal.
Some websites may want to achieve multiple goals. If that's the case you'll want to create a hierarchy of those goals. Thing of the goals as if they were stacked in a pyramid. Is there one goal that trumps all others? If there is... that would be at the top of the pyramid. The lower priority of goal the further it should be moved down the pyramid. At some point you'll want to sacrifice smaller goals to ensure you achieve the largest ones.
With your goals established you now need to begin to think about how you're going to achieve them through your website. If you have one primary goal your homepage should be all about that one thing. Don't make your homepage overly complicated with all different types of contents. You'll have the most success driving your traffic through a single process.
If you're selling a product you want to say very clearly what that product is and why someone ought to purchase it. In addition you want to let your site visitor know what to do next if they're interested. People like to see photos and they also add value to what you're selling. So be sure to include a nice big photo.
Somewhere near the top of the page you need to include what I call a "headline". The headline should be a concise statement that tells the visitor what your website is about. This should be located above any photo and should be in large font. Essentially the page should read somewhat like a news paper. Hence forth the name "headline".
Below your photo you'll want to have what's called a "call to action". A call to action is all about what the site visitor needs to do next. Your call to action can be a phone number, a continue button, a buy button, or anything you want the site visitor to do next. If you're using a button you'll want to make sure your buttons look like something to click on.
So far we've covered the basics for the homepage. So let's think about some of the other things your site visitors might want to see when visiting your site. One thing I know is helpful is contact information. A phone number is most important but if you don't have the ability or just simply don't want to take calls you should include a contact form or at minimum an email address.
Don't include your contact information only on a "Contact" page. Not all your site visitors will know or what to navigate to a special page to find your contact info. I suggest you put the phone number somewhere near the top of every page on your website and you always include it in the same spot. This will prevent people from having to search around your site to figure out how to get a hold of you.
Stay tuned for part 2 of How to plan a website.