Perhaps you’re a new business, wanting to start everything out right with your office painted, your sign out front and your website up and ready to go. Perhaps you’ve got a website, and it’s out of date. Perhaps you’re established everywhere else, and think it’s time for a web presence. Here are some questions that can help make sure we’re on the same page before I give you an estimate:

1. What do you have now (give the address)? If the answer isn’t “nothing”, what do you like best about your current site? Least?

2. What’s the one thing you need your site to do most? If you have a current site, does it do that? How well?

3. What’s the one thing you want your site to do most? This is more about what you think is cool, eye-catching or just plain nifty, rather than necessity.

4. What are some sites you use regularly? What do you like best about them? What don’t you like?

5. What are the impressions you want someone to get when they first visit your site? Professional, fun, cool, welcoming, homey, natural, creative, something else?

6. Do you already have logos and a color scheme for your business? Do you want your website to reflect them? Do you want to update your whole look as part of the site update?

7. What hosting do you have? When does your domain registration expire? Do you have the passwords for both? If the answer is “nothing”, then what do you need and will you need help setting it up? What about search engine optimization? Shopping cart systems?

8. Do you know what you want your site to say? Will you provide the text, or will you need a copy writer?

9. Make a list of all the things you want out of your website. This is the free-form question where you can fill in all the blanks left by all the rest of the questions, so don’t be afraid to be random, thorough, and a little rambling.

10. And finally, what sort of budget do you have? You don’t have to disclose this if you don’t want to, but it will help me to be able to tell you what corners can be snipped and what can’t, and how well your wants and needs fit inside your budget.