When you begin a website, you must have your main purpose clearly in mind. This is because it's easy to have conflicting purposes.

• If you're a website design firm, you may want to show off your high tech goodies with your client's site as the showpiece.
• If you're an employee stuck with this task, you may want to look good for your bosses and not do anything for which you can be blamed -- you've got to protect your backside.
• If you're a volunteer, you may just want an excuse to tinker and be praised for it.
• If you're a business owner, you probably care about the bottom line. You're wondering, How much this will cost? and Will it be worth it in the long run?

There are some common website purposes.

• Build your brand. Create an online brochure that will help potential clients, customers, and partners learn about your company and look at it in a favourable light. You're trying to enhance your brand or organisation image. Sometimes this kind of website is referred to as "brochure-ware." But this is very legitimate for some kinds of companies, especially local businesses or organisations that aren't trying to conduct national or international commerce. You want people to know who you are, what you do, where to find you, and how to contact you.
• Provide product information to drive local sales of your products and services at dealer locations. Auto sites are a good example. Many manufacturers don't sell on their sites, but point people to retailers who carry their products.
• Sell advertising. A few sites are designed to sell advertising -- Yahoo!, Google, and other portal sites are examples. But these days, there's far too much advertising space and not nearly enough money to fill it all. Internet advertising is improving, but is still under-priced. You may be able to sell a little advertising if you're a portal site for an industry, or perhaps put some Google AdSense ads on your site. But these aren't big money-makers. Look at advertising sales as a hopeful bonus, not as a sure thing.
• Sell products or services directly over the Internet. You want to conduct e-commerce and sell to a national or international market. You'll have some kind of ordering system for one or more products, or perhaps an extensive online catalogue. You may offer an online service that can be delivered over the Internet or that can be initiated online.
• Earn affiliate commissions for sales and leads generated through links on your website. Savvy marketers are building microsites designed to generate search engine traffic for a particular hot product or service. When a visitor clicks on one of their links, he is referred to an e-commerce site, and, if a sale results, the affiliate gets a commission. Perhaps a form on your site generates leads or subscriptions for another company.
• Provide customer service and support. Websites are a great place for troubleshooting guides, FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), technical information, etc. You can generate Return Merchandise Authorisation (RMA) labels. You can provide multiple ways for your customers to contact you (see under Point #9 below).
• Save money by means of online efficiencies. Companies have used the Internet to save billions of dollars. Taking orders online with real-time credit card authorisation saves paying call centre operators and cuts entry errors. Online catalogues save lots in paper, printing, and distribution costs. Online FAQs and knowledge bases cut the number of customer service personnel you need. And I'm just scratching the surface here.

From the above list of website purposes, prioritise the purposes from your perspective, Then document exactly what you want your website to achieve, in one or two sentences.

A great many businesses on the Web find difficulty explaining to someone why they should be on the Internet. So it is important to make the purpose of the site crystal clear.
The following are the four major missions companies seek to accomplish on the Internet:

1. brand development,
2. revenue generation,
   Hobby sites don't need to generate revenue. A company may be putting off revenue generation until they learn the ropes of e-business, or until they generate enough site traffic to produce revenue. But the bottom line for all companies that want to stay in business is revenue generation. There are three primary models at present --
   1. prospect generation,
   2. online sales transactions, and
   3. advertising and referral income.
3. cost savings, and
4. customer support.

• How can I present my company in the best possible light? (brand development)
• What source(s) of revenue can we realistically expect from our online business.
• How can we achieve maximal cost savings on the Internet? and
• How can we provide excellent online customer support?