Boise Website Part 1: Conceptualization

Welcome to the first Meat-And-Potatoes post regarding the Boise, Idaho website that I’m building completely from scratch. I’ll try to show you every step I take – big and small – so you can make a site of your own with very little web savvy (I’m no programmer; if I can do it, so can you).

And no, the “potatoes” comment wasn’t a direct Idaho pun. Well, not really anyway.

If you missed the introduction to this series, which includes my reasoning for starting and sharing this project, you can check it out HERE.

Boise Rocks - So Will My Site!

The Early Planning Stages

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a shoot-from-the-hip kind of guy. I don’t do a lot of formal pre-planning on most of my websites, I just kind of start building and see where it takes me. Sometimes the results astound me, other times they… well, let’s just say they don’t astound me.

I want to astound myself with this site. And more importantly, I want to astound you. After all, why would you be interested in anything else I’ll ever share here on Search Engine Viking if my very first website example is a total flop?

Long story short: I’m forcing myself to put a pen to the paper and actually draw up a formalized plan of attack. Keep in mind that I’m running through this process as it makes sense in my brain. There are lots of web developers out there who would tell me I’m flat-out wrong, and that’s okay. Like I said, I’m outlining MY process.

I encourage you to follow along, both with this post and the rest of the Boise Website series. If you do so, you’ll end up with a groovy little website of your own by the time I’m done.

So here we go with…

Step 1: The Website’s Niche

Niche is a fancy way of saying “theme” or “topic.” By now you already know that my theme is Boise. But the problem is that “Boise” by itself is pretty broad. So for now I’m going to narrow it down to “People Visiting Boise.”

Why did I narrow it down? For two reasons:

Targeted Audience: I can create content (posts and pages) for readers who are unfamiliar with the Boise, Idaho area. This makes it easier to write, but more importantly I can voice each post in a way that resonates with first time Boise folks.

Realistic Expectations: Trying to write stories for Boise newbies AND the people living here would take forever. And I don’t want to spend forever on this project (more about that later).

Step 2: What Will This Site Provide The Readers?

Since I’m targeting people visiting the city, I want to provide them information for their stay. This will probably include topics like:

Where to stay: Hotels, Bed & Breakfasts

Where to eat: Restaurants, Diners

Things to do: Arts, Entertainment, Recreation

Places to visit: Geographic Landmarks, Historical Places

How to get here: Airport, Bus and Driving Information

Step 3: What Do I Want To Get Out Of This Site?

Ah yes, the greedy “What’s In It For Me” question.

Here’s what I want out of it:

Low Maintenance. Once it’s built, it’s built. Save for the occasional house keeping chores (like removing restaurants that go out of business and such), I don’t want to keep adding content to this thing forever.

Money: Yes, a big motivation for this site is to create a stream of income. It doesn’t have to make millions, but a steady stream of dollars would make me very happy – and able to buy some of life’s little luxuries I’ve been putting off, like brakes for my car.

Rankings: I’d like to rank in Google’s top 10 (first page) for a plethora of keywords, including some highly-competitive ones. If I achieve this, I’ll probably do okay on  the money front.

And with that, I’ll wrap this up. You probably noticed that I haven’t set any deadlines or goals for this project yet. That’s because you are super clever and highly adept at spotting holes, I applaud your intuition… If this isn’t the perfect segue into the next chapter, I don’t know what is.

Until next time.

(Photo credits go to a killer photographer and great buddy of mine, Brian)

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 4:12 am by Lee and is filed under Boise Website Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.