This comprehensive questionnaire is what we use to outline the requirements for a proposal. We are posting it here so you can start thinking about some of the issues with creating or updating a business website.

When you're ready to take the next step, send us what you've completed and we'll take it from there. After a brief conversation, we will give you a plan that we think best fits your needs with a proposal for the work.

Who You Are:

Name:
Company Name:
Email Address:
Current web address, if any:

A brief description of what your business does:

Goals

What is the mission or purpose of your business or organization?

Do you have a tagline (ours is where Vision and Technology meet)?

What is the purpose of your web site?

What do you intend to accomplish with it?

Do you want people to: (circle as many as apply)

Learn more about your business or organization?

Hire you to perform a service?

Buy products from you?

Join your organization?

Communicate with you?

Become part of an online community?

Other:

Target Audience / Community

Is your target audience Consumers, Businesses or both?

Who is your target audience or community? (Age, gender, interests, locality)

Who are your competitors?

When people visit your site, what do they want? (circle those that apply)

Information about a topic

Information about your products, services or organization

To be entertained

To comparison shop or to buy a product

To connect with others of similar interests

Other:

Will you wish us to conduct a survey of your customers before or after doing your web site?

Image & Style

We can't emphasize enough the impact that colors, pictures and graphic design say about you and your business. We will be glad to help you through this process. In a study by Xerox, it was found that:

Color presents an image of impressive quality
Color can assist in attracting new customers
Customers remember presentations and documents better when color is used
Color makes them appear more successful
Color gives them a competitive edge
The use of color makes their business appear larger to clients

If you want to know more about color, visit on of our favorite sites www.colormatters.com.

Do you have a corporate color you wish to use on this site?

What IMAGE do you want to project? (circle choices)

Classy Eclectic Traditional Contemporary Conservative Cutting edge Formal Casual Serious Friendly

Corporate Personal Expensive Affordable Fun Old-Fashioned Bold

Add some of your own descriptors:

What STYLE do you want to communicate? (circle choices)

Serene Spiritual Powerful Professional Hip Classic Elegant Funky Ethnic Natural/Organic

High-tech Frivolous Fun Flashy Muted Soft Playful Down-to-earth Mellow Comforting

Romantic Sensual Authoritative Delicate Energetic Historical Festive Fanciful

Do have any existing graphic or promotional materials?

Do you have a logo?

Do you have photos that you wish to use on the web site?

Content

Do you - or your staff - have the following resources (circle where you have the time and skills)?

Copy-Writing Photography Graphic-Design Illustration Database-Development

Do you have an outline of the content for your site?

Is the content written? What software did you use to create content?

Do you need help in developing, writing and/or editing the content for your web site?

If your site outline is done, how many sections do you have, and about how many pages in each section?

Will you have a product catalog? How many items?

Will you need to calculate tax and shipping?

What keywords and or key phrases would you expect someone to type into a search engine to find you?

Do you expect users to download documents/manuals/spreadsheets from you?

Typically websites consist of a home page with additional pages for specific content. Please list additional pages you would like included. For example: Products, Services, About Us, Privacy, Terms and Conditions, Contact Us, etc.

Will you be linking to any external web sites? i.e. Manufacturer, Dealers, MSDS sheets, research, etc.

How frequently will you want to update your web site? Daily Weekly Monthly Quarterly Annual

How confident are you (or your staff) about working with computers and the internet? Not-Very Medium Fairly-Confident Very-Confident

Note: Not-Very: You would outsource everything to do with building and maintaining your site. Medium: You might want to handle domain name, email and hosting but you don't want to build it. Fairly-Confident: You would be able to maintain a web site if you had a straightforward way of doing it. Very-Confident: You would be able to build and maintain if you had the time.

Functionality

Please identify what functionality you would like. The following are just a few of the hundreds of functions available to you.

• Blog - otherwise known as a web log or online commentary/diary.
• Chat - Allows real-time online chat between users.
• Classifieds – Allows posting classified ads.
• Contact Management – Contact Management – i.e. Rolodex or Outlook Contacts
• Data Entry – application to build simple data entry applications.
• Discussion/Forum – Message board for topical discussions.
• Events Calendar - Tracks events and displays in calendar(s)
• Events Management – Create events and allow users to sign up.
• FAQ Management – Application to organize frequently asked questions.
• File Distribution – Distributes files for viewing or download based upon privileges of user.
• Groupware – Application to provide email and group scheduling.
• Guest Book – Guest log – sometimes called graffiti.
• Help Desk/Problem Reporting – creating trouble tickets and alerts.
• Job Postings – application to manage job listings.
• Link Management – automated link management to build link exchanges.
• Mail Form – customizable ‘contact us’ forms.
• My Page/ Dashboard – portal applications which let’s users modify their page.
• Newsletter – allows users to add/delete to/from a list of available emails.
• Photo Gallery – Module to display thumbnails and images.
• Video Gallery - Module to play almost any type of video online. Great for training or showing off your product or service.
• Polls – application to manage simple single question polls with real time results.
• Product Management – module to organize product features and benefits – catal og.
• Project Tracking - managing project tasks and due dates.
• Search Engine – internal search of all documents on the web site.
• Site Map – dynamic creation of a table of contents.
• Stock Quotes – stock ticker information – delayed.
• Surveys – application to manage complex multi-question surveys.
• Syndicated Content (RSS) - Application for retrieving and displaying RSS syndicated content.
• Tests/Quizzes – module to administer tests.
• Time Tracking – tracking time for payroll or billing.
• User Contributions – module to allow users to contribute content to site.
• Weather – weather information based on site or user location.
• E-Commerce

If you would like other functionality not listed above, please list it here:

Promotion

How do you - or will you - promote your business (circle all that apply):

Networking Referrals Yellow-Pages Magazine-Advertising Direct-Mail TeleSales eMail Search-Engine Searches Adwords Another-Website other?

Do you have a marketing/promotion plan for your web site?

Do you have plans for updating the content of your site or for an email newsletter?

Would you like us to do that for you?

Dates, Hosting and Maintenance

When would you like your web site to be launched?

Note: The domain name is the name of your web site. Like isresearch.com is the domain name of this site. The host is the place that keeps all of your programs and data and allows others to find your site. We prefer to host sites that we develop but we can work with another host if you choose.

Do you have the domain name registered?

Do you have a host selected?

How many monthly visitors do you expect to grow to? How many at the end of the first year?

Will you be processing credit cards? Do you have a payment processor (please identify)?

Web Sites - Likes and Dislikes

Please list a few web sites that you like. These should appeal to you and have the kind of look and message that you would like your customer to have.

Please list some of your competitors. Please let us know what you like and don't like about their web sites.

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