Deciding on the type of a web site you’re going to need.
Some web sites cost much more than others to develop (see 'what it costs') so in terms of your business plan it’s important to know at the outset what kind of site you're going to need and how big your site will be.
If you’re selling a service, such as accountancy, a massage or boarding kennels, i.e., one where you need to make contact with your prospect to make a sale, then you’ll want your web site to generate enquiries for you, which then can be converted to sales. Lead-generating sites are sometimes called ‘Brochure’ web sites
Perhaps you can sell your service or products at ‘arm’s length’ where’s there’s no direct contact required with the buyer?
On line learning courses, items of clothing, jewellery, holidays for example can all be sold directly online via ‘E-commerce’ web sites, which usually provide a shopping cart which enables your customers to buy and you to take payment. These sites are usually more complicated than brochure sites, so they tend to cost more to build.
How big will your site be?
As best you can at this stage, and in the interests of calculating a reasonably accurate budget to include in your business plan, try and determine the scope of your web site - i.e., how many product categories will there be, how many products and how many variations of products will your site offer?
Anyone you talk to about building your web site, will need to know how many pages it’s likely to run to help them work out what the cost for building your site.