It’s always exciting when you get to take on a new website project that involves several people all starting up a new online business. However, once the initial excitement has waned and reality has set in, or worse, you suddenly find yourself in way over your head, then you need to make a proper plan on paper.

The first thing you need to work out is how much of your working day you can afford to give over to your new project. That will depend hugely on what you have agreed to do.

In my case, it is to build a new website and have it ready to sell online distance learning courses. If that was all it involved, life would be pretty easy… but there’s more (there nearly always is).

As this isn’t just a commission from a third party but something that I’m personally involved with, there is a lot more to it than producing a package that I can hand over to someone else on a certain date, collect my cheque and wash my hands of it.

I’m hosting the website so have to set up emails for all the partners. I have to create a blog that everyone can access and update. I also have to work on all the courses that we will be promoting as in many cases they have to be re-written and brought up to date. Luckily we will go live with as many as I can have ready to go on launch date, so there is not too much pressure to do a massive re-write, although it would be nice to start with ten complete and ready to go courses. I also have to set up a database to enrol students on the courses and also set up an online payment system.

Did I say I thought it would be easy?

Didn’t think so.

So for anyone finding themselves in a similar situation, how would you cope with all that work and still continue with your own ongoing online business?

Here’s how I’ll be doing it, so you might get some ideas from this:

Before anything can be done, I’ll write down and draw on paper what the website needs to look like roughly and how many pages and sub-pages there will be. I’ll also write down how many email accounts and their details and requirements. Then to make a list of the first five courses in order of importance (or projected sales potential) that I want to have ready to go first, then the next five. I’ll work out how I want my database to look and my access page for queries and updates.

If you don’t know much about databases, learn to love MySQL (or Access if you can’t function without Microsoft)! I personally prefer MySQL and have enough knowledge to do what I need to do. If you don’t, then you’ll be looking at outsourcing this part of the project.

Also before you get started, keep a blank page and give it the title: “Other Details I Didn’t Think Of!” - you’ll come back to this one more than once! Then you can work on your daily schedule:

• Split your working day into two separate halves with a break in-between
• First half goes on the new project so you can show your progress in the evening if anyone else wants an update. Then sub-plan your morning for the project.

On the first day:

• Start by doing a couple of hours on the course re-writes then put them to one side.
• Next, do some work on the website and at least get the home page and a site map up on the server.
• Next create the blog as this is easy to do along with setting up the email accounts so the partners can all communicate with one another.
• By this time you’ll probably have run out it, so take a break.

On subsequent days:

• Keep the same times as the first day with a couple of hours writing time first.
• The next couple of hours can go on the website design and adding more pages. You can also use this time to work on the database.
• Whatever time is left can go on promotion (yes start as soon as possible) – that is time that you spent setting up the blog and email accounts on the first day. Initial promotion will include writing articles to submit to article directories to get the site indexed by the search engines as fast as possible. It will also include researching speciality forums in the right niches to sign up with and do some getting-to-know-you posting.

That’s about as much as you can do over the initial creation period as live promotion in the form of advertising can only be started once the site is live and open for business (I’m not including pre-launch advertising which can be done in the weeks leading up to launch).

Lastly, go back to your “Other Details I Didn’t Think Of!” page and add whatever you forgot in the initial stages. You’ll be surprised how you fill this page up!

My own project will be starting off slow and growing naturally using free promotional methods as well as letting the site rise naturally in the SERPs, so there’s no worries over advertising. Also, all of the offline work will be handled by other members of the team so I won’t end up doing everything (that’s why you have a team). In fact, once the initial build and launch is done, my workload will be less than the others and will only include website maintenance and online free promotional work etc, which won’t take up too much time and I can get back to normal with my other online work.

Well, that’s how it’ll get done doing it my way, which of course will involve taking that schedule and turning it on it’s head and inside out as I can’t stand working to a schedule! But at least it will give me a rough guide to how to divide my working day give or take a few hours either way!

Everyone has their own preference, so of course you should go with what works best for you.

Terry Didcott
Blogging Web 2.0

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Filed under: Internet Marketing