Internet Communication Checklist

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Here is a checklist of item to help you decide on what you need for your internet presence and communication.

Website

• Your target audience or market segment
  eg 'buyers of building products', 'students', 'wine collectors', 'mothers', 'Christian community', etc
   

• Geographic location of your target audience
  eg specific country, English-speaking world, or specific states, regions, cities...
   

• Purpose of the website
  Consider which of the following apply:
  
  Provide contact info
  Company overview
  People profiles
  Career opportunities
  Product information
  Customer support
  Technical support
  Customer service
  After-sales service
  Provide useful information
  Education/Training
  Booking system
  Generate sales leads
  Take orders online
  Accept payment online
  Third party advertising
  
  List any other purposes for your site

• Visual appearance
  Do you have a company style, logo, or colour scheme that the site needs to reflect? Have you seen any existing sites that seem good to you?
   

• Search Engine Readiness
  How important is it that your site can be found through keyword search on search engines?
   

• Expected visitor numbers
  What is the ballpark number of website visitors you expect per day?
    - less than 1k
    - 1k to 10k
    - 10k to 100k
    - over 100k
   

• Domain name
  Do you need or do you already have a domain name for your site?
   

• Desired schedule
  When does the site have to be ready for visitors?

Technical issues

• Video or audio files
  Do you have video or audio files that need to be 'streamed' to visitors?
   

• Site availability/uptime
  Typical websites can experience periods of downtime due to internet congestion, sever reboot, etc. This can be up to 1%.  Is this acceptable for your site?
   

• Databases
  Will you have a database of info that visitors can search for information? eg a list of 1000's of product codes, or a list of members, dictionary, glossary.
   

• Frequency of backup
  Will your site need frequent backup ( ie every day)?
  eg: if you plan to collect customer information in a database or maintain mailing lists on your site.

Email

• Mailboxes
  How many mailboxes do you need for your team?

• List Management
  Will you be maintaining a mailing list?
  Automatic signup/unsubscribe?

• Mail volume
  What volume of incoming and outgoing mail do you expect?