Getting ready to dive into a site? Better have yourself a good plan first. I would start by letting this guide be my shining light, myself.

Some background

I design sites small enough that I can handle all the details myself—sites for small and micro businesses. Many sites I design don’t sell anything, so I used to have trouble applying planning advice I read in Web design books (see Further Reading below).

I’ve been playing around on the Web for a long time. I weathered the CSS revolution and was happy to leave tables, spacer GIFs and pixel-perfect layouts behind. I have a good handle on how to code a site—though I’m always learning something new—but I haven’t always known how to create the best site for my client. [Read the rest]