Step by step procedure to building websites?

Question

What steps do you take to build a website, and why? Do you build the database first, draw out templates, tell people about it before or after its live, at what point do you worry about monetization, how much time do you put in before testing it.... etc.

From beginning to end, what comes into play and what steps do you take to building a website...

Edit

This was intended to be an open question dealing with everything that has to do with building a website, but I guess I should have realized what type of site this is... So with that said, what steps do you as a programmer take to build a website? (database first, drawn templates first, etc...)

Answer 1

I would like to point you to a free online book by the folks at 37signals. It's called "Getting Real: Discover the smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web-based application" It is a quick easy and understandable read!!!

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/

Answer 2

I find vision is a bigger problem in doing a new site that the technical problems. A large percentage of my customers don't actually know what they are trying to accomplish.

Questions I ask (these don't solve the problem, but they at least get people focused on it):

1. What distinct audiences are you trying to reach with this site?
2. What is/are the primary function(s) each audience needs to receive from the site?
3. How does this site relate to the rest of your business? To your revenue stream?
4. List every function you could possibly want the site to support.
5. If you could only have (afford) 20% of those functions, which would they be?
6. Give me the names/phone numbers/email addresses of at least 3 people in each of your target audiences. I want to find out what they think they need.

Once we have a good handle on the target audiences we start doing User Stories. Lots and lots of User Stories. We do admin input stories, we do new user sign up stories, we do comment on a posting stories, on and on and on. I have had more than one customer say, "Holy sh*t! This is going to be a lot of work!" I say, "Yeah, it is."

Answer 3

If your goal for a site is to make money, and you don't have a plan on how you're going to do that before you start making the site (you don't have to actually be making money from the start, but at least have a plan), you're doing it wrong.