Launching Your First Site:
Part Two, Architecture

Last week, I explained how to plan your first website. Your next step should be designing the site architecture and deciding what technology to use.

Taxonomy/ Architecture
A good place to start is taxonomy, or a diagram of how all of the elements on your website will work. A lot of people make the mistake of designing the front-end, which is what the user sees, first. However, this will lead to problems later on, as you realize that you want to add more features or take away some of the functions you originally designed. Instead, answer these questions in a memo to yourself:

1. Start a "FUNCTIONS" list. Brainstorm a big list of everything you could possibly want your site to do. You might look at other websites you like and pull examples from them. Functions include: the ability for users to comment in real-time, an area that shows the weather, displaying related content from other websites, a button for someone to instantly post a comment and a link to your story via Twitter, Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, delicious or any other social networking site.
2. Divide your FUNCTIONS list into three sections, TOP PRIORITY, IMPORTANT, and WAIT UNTIL AFTER LAUNCH. Prioritize your entire list.

Publishing Platform: Blogs, Content Management Systems and Mobile
Creating this list will enable you to find a way to manage all of that content. One early decision you'll need to make is what kind of content management system to use. In many cases, it might be easiest to use a blogging platform, such as Blogger and WordPress. MovableType. For those of you in broadcast, you'll need a vehicle for your audio/ visual content. Take a look at mogulus, blip, qik, kyte, BlogTalkRadio and Foneshow as examples of where to start.

If you're planning a bigger website, you'll need to harness a more robust content management system (or CMS). A CMS is an automated series of tools and commands that supports the creation, management, distribution and storage of digital information. In one place, you can create original content, edit and proof it, publish it to the World Wide Web and archive it for later use. And you can typically accomplish all of this with a series of simple clicks of a mouse.

There are differences in the available digital content management tools. For example, a digital asset management (DAM) system differs from a content management system in many ways. A DAM easily allows an organization to categorize, re-purpose and retrieve large amounts of digital content that is not necessarily changed or updated frequently.

For most news and other organizations that produce new content regularly, a CMS is the best solution.

Many websites use a CMS today, but that wasn’t always the case. Maybe your news organization is still updating your website by hand using an HTML editor such as Dreamweaver. Without a CMS, Web developers must hand-code entire pages and upload them. To make a change across the entire site, for example, a developer must edit multiple pages, upload them all, and then republish a site. This process is time-wasting and tedious, even for very small websites.

A CMS automates this process, freeing up valuable staff time for other projects. It ensures the timely delivery of your content, and it gives you the ability to manage how your site functions and what it looks like. A good CMS allows consumers to navigate throughout your site and, hopefully, to let others know about your content through feeds and other means.

In many cases, a CMS helps you update an entire site at once by making only one small change. So if someone misspells Mississippi in several different places, you should be able to tell the CMS to go through all of the documents and change it to the correct spelling instantly.

There are a host of CMS possibilities. You could use an open source tool, which is free to start but might require an investment in customization or in development. You could also try an enterprise system, for which you'll either need to purchase a license or lease the software. The availability of a CMS also varies depending on where in the world you are. It's best to start your search online.

Don't forget about mobile! If you're in a location where mobile communications makes more sense, there are a number of mobile platforms that can deliver content via SMS (text message), mobile websites or even voice mail messages.(You can also drop me an email and I can point you to more specific resources for mobile and for CMS.)

Design
Once you have an architecture and publishing platform in place, you'll want to think about design. I'm not a designer by trade - I'm lucky if I walk out of the house with my shoes and socks coordinated. I won't go into colors and shapes here, but I can tell you this: Make your site easy to use and easy to navigate. Look around online to see what you like and what others recommend. And if you don't have a good design sensibility, hunt around for someone who does!

Timeline
Now you'll need to create a firm timeline. Rule #1: Things always take longer than you think they will. Rule #2: Don't plan on a public launch without a few weeks of private testing.

There is no magic number of days or weeks for any project. So be realistic in your planning. You can get a blog set up in a few hours, if you know how to use the tools and a bit of code. You can also take months of planning and design time to launch a simple site. Be realistic in your goals. Set milestones every day and throughout the weeks of your project and try to stick to them...but be willing and able to readjust.

If you work with an outside firm, make sure that they honor the deadlines you agreed to. It's a good rule of thumb to write in deadlines into the contract and to impose a penalty if they can't/ don't deliver. For example, you might deduct 2-3% of the total contract fee for every X# days that they are late in completing milestones or even the entire project.

Next week, I'll go through some launch do's and don'ts, and I'll show you how to market yourself online!

To read all of Amy's 'Webb on the Web' columns, click here.

Amy Webb is a digital media consultant and head of Webbmedia Group, LLC. Find more multimedia tips and ideas at her blog, http://www.mydigimedia.com. You can also follow Amy on Twitter and delicious. Webbmedia Group is a vendor-neutral company. Any opinions expressed about products or services are formed after testing, research and interviews. Neither Amy Webb nor Webbmedia Group or its employees receives any financial or other benefits from vendors.