How to Create a Website Blueprint

Before you start creating a website ask yourself  what the theme of your site is?  A theme is the focus of your site and should only be one to three words, for example “home cooking” and “kid party ideas”.  It’s what your site is all about.  Whether you are creating a new online business, or creating a website for a brick and mortar, it’s important to define the theme of your site.

Is it something that’s in demand?  How much do you love your site theme, not jut like it, but love it.  This will be very important in the long term.  If you don’t love it you will be more likely to give up on it.

So Before you start creating a website, determine what your site theme is and make sure you love it.

Once you have a clear idea of your site’s theme, you’ll need to do some keyword research to determine if it has enough demand to build a site around.  Are there enough keywords?  And are these keywords in good demand. To find these keywords and other data, you’ll need some type of tool like Wordtracker, or Google adwords keyword tool.

These tools will provide you with a list of keywords related to your site’s theme and  search volume.  Search volume is the number of times that particular keyword was  searched for per month or year.   The results depend on the tool you use and their network of search engines.

Usually the higher the number or searches the more competitive the keyword.  So try and choose more specific keywords and avoid the broader terms.

Try to come up with a list of 50 or more related keyword phrases to build your site around.  Once you have a list,  organize them into a site layout. Start by choosing 5 to 10 navigation items or categories and which keywords belong in what category.

So for example if you’re site theme was “recipes” (this is probably too broad), you would type in recipes in your keyword tool.  I typed it in Google’s keyword tool and came up with 5 terms for the navigation.  There were many more and you can definitely have more than 5.

I chose the terms below just as an example.  When choosing take into consideration the number of searches and also your level of interest and knowledge about the term.

I like Chicken, pasta, beef, vegetarian, and desert recipes.  Or I was just hungry while writing this .

5 navigation items for site theme on “Recipes”

1. Chicken recipes
2. Pasta recipes
3. Vegetarian recipes
4. Beef recipes
5. Desert recipes

Then go to your keyword tool and type in each of the above keywords one at a time. If I type in chicken recipes in Google adwords keyword tool I get a list of keywords.  Here are some examples.

baked chicken recipe

chicken salad recipe

chicken pie recipe

chicken casserole recipe

And so on.

Now you take the keywords and layout a site map or site plan for your website.  Once you have your plan then you can begin creating a website.

1. Chicken recipes
   1. baked chicken recipe
   2. chicken salad recipe
   3. chicken pie recipe
   4. chicken casserole recipe
2. Pasta recipes
   1. Pene Pasta Recipe
   2. Angle Hair Pasta Recipe
   3. Shrimp Pasta Recipe
   4. Crab Pasta Recipe
3. Vegetarian recipes
4. Beef recipes
5. Desert recipes

Once you have a nice blueprint of 50 or more keywords laid out and organized as above, and you feel good about your theme then you can start creating a website. The next step would be to find a good domain name and choosing a hosting plan.