Plan your objectives

Before embarking upon going online, you need to be completely clear of your objectives. Take time out to think about what you want to achieve online. You may run a business selling cosmetics, but that doesn’t mean your site only objective is to sell more make-up products. When thinking about what your site should achieve, you need to step back and look at the situation from customer’s perspective, because on the Internet the customer is definitely in control.

Here are some general objectives that may apply to your online site. You may want your web site to:
Increase sales
Build trust
Generate brand awareness
Offer improves customer service
Provide relevant and up-to-date information
Expand your business overseas
Provide a point of contact for your existing customers

When you have put together your objectives, you will then be able to clarify hoe you are targeting your prospective customers and how much money you should spend opening the site.