There are many pieces to building and a lunching public web site, technical, creative etc. This is the first of a series I plan to share my approach. Future blogs will focus on each area in more detail.
Before I get into the article, I'd like to share my background and experience in web development. I've 13+ years of experience in software development, project management and management consulting - pretty much all in Microsoft technologies. I started as a C++ developer and moved to VB, ASP, ASP.NET, VB.NET/C# and SQL Server. I've been involved in many end to end web development projects mostly for corporates on the US east cost. Ina addition, I've build few sites for others - ecommerce, dating, matrimonials, classifieds, social networking etc. I've learnt something new everytime and have built/identified a framework which is reusable. My approach is "getting things done" rather than a purest software development techiniques.
The top 6 things to decide before you start the web project
Business model Have a clear idea on what you want to do and how it benifits the end user. In case of SearchPartner, singles are my end users. the issue I was in today's dating business is there are many sites who charge and few free ones which are not easy to use. I'm targeting SearchPartner as a community driven free dating site.
Technology For me this was easy, I want to put in my experience and background to build SearchPartner quickly and my choice was Microsoft stack. Again I do not want to get into Microsoft vs LAMP stack. My stand is both have merits and pick what you are good at.
Domain Name This is not easy no a days. With 1000s of new sites launched everyday, it's really had to get a good one. You could drop a vowel and go with a web 2.0ish name, but got to have big bucks to market it. Fortunately, I'd held on to SearchPartner from 1998 when I was using it for another idea.
Site Structure Should be simple to navagate. Clearly identify public and members onle areas.
Layout Gone are the days when you needed a lot of Flash & images. Now, your layout got to be clean & bold. I refered to many excellent articles and blogs to decide on the SearchPartner layout. I'm not a designer, but know the basics to get around.
Hosting Again very improtant decision. Got to balance between hosting plans, budget, projected traffic and technology. I use ultimahosts, who I find to be very responsive and offer a wide array of plans to suit your needs. And you can move up the plan depending on the growth.
Look for my future blogs for details on the sections above.
Thanks for reading this blog.
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