The first step is consider what type of online presence you want, these fall roughly into 5 categories although a number of websites do offer more than one.

1. e-commerce:
   provision of products available to purchase online.
2. information:
   typically help to generate offline sales of services by providing information.
3. brand:
   focus is to support your brand.
4. portal:
   provision of news and information around a range of topics.
5. social networks or community:
   enables community interactions between different consumers.

All these categories influence in slightly different ways when it comes to website design, development, website launch, operational ongoing costs and marketing. For example, a brand building site needs less monthly work than an e-commerce or portal site which depend on fresh updated information.