Think about the websites you visit daily, they likely include some of the following: news, shopping, blog, event/calendar, e-mail, information, or community.  There are many more but those are the most popular types of Web sites, but how do you know which one – or ones – are right for your business?

Ask yourself one question:

What would my Web site have to do in order for me to consider it a success?

Would it be to sell X number of items? Get the word out about an event you are hosting? Provide information about your services? Join people of a commonality together?

Once you know what your Web site’s purpose is, you can then begin to design to achieve those goals.

But what if your site has many purposes?  What if you need to provide information and sell and join people together?

In that case you need to cater your primary design to the entirety of the site while maintaining functionality and usability in the unique areas of the site.

Above all your focus should be on usability.  If your site isn’t usable, it doesn’t matter how pretty it is.