I’m certain that many sites have not been designed and built with any purpose in mind. They seem to have grown like topsy, appearing like a variety of ill-fitting parts all bolted together. And it doesn’t give visitors a good reason to stay.

You need to have a single purpose or focus to your website. So what could that be? Here are a few good reasons to build a site,

• Selling a product or service
• Online brochure or catalogue
• Publishing or topical news items
• Portal or gateway to other sites
• Special interest or public service
• Blogging or social interaction
• Virtual gallery or imagery

Many service businesses start with a simple brochure or catalogue, which shows off what they can do. This is usually the easiest to build. Special interest or public services include niche websites, which focus on a single topic or related topics, by providing articles, resources, reviews, opinions, recommendations and more.

If you sell a product, you should have a sales letter on your home page. And if you hope to make sales online, you will need ecommerce features too. Catalogue sites with ecommerce are often the most challenging to build. Probably the most famous example is amazon, touted as the world largest bookstore.

Portal sites were once very popular, such as Yahoo, but if that’s your plan, you’ll have an uphill struggle competing with established sites, however, there could be a market for niche portals that focus on a specific topic.

Building a blog is a great way to promote your knowledge and expertise, chat with like-minded people or provide a customer support and discussion forum. Blogs are excellent personal publishing sites and are seen as part of the trend towards web 2.o and social networking.

If your business is in photography or the graphical arts, you could design a site with strong images, carousel photo slides and videos. Now that many people have broadband connections, the additional bandwidth required is not a problem anymore. And there are many businesses that lend themselves to a more artistic presentation.

But whatever you decide to do, make sure you have a clear purpose. Think about what you want your site to accomplish and what your visitors will want to do. think about the type of content you are presenting and the best way to present it.

Finally, once you are clear on this, write a paragraph or two in the form of a mission statement. Be clear what your goals are and what you hope to achieve with your website. This will start you off on the right foot.