What does your brand say about you? Maybe that's a question you've never thought about? Your site will communicate something to your users whether you've directly intended it to or not.
Basically we want to communicate a clear message so we need to understand:
So we need carefully worded content. A visitor will react to the visual look of a site, so we need to understand what kind of a reaction we want and together the look and written content will both communicate a clear message that together is both powerful and strong. So for example if your a solicitor you want a slightly stiff reaction that communicates that they take their work seriously, there a traditional company that have the experience of trading for many years. Whereas if your site is a magazine aimed at teenage girls it has to be alive, vibrant, fun and possibly even slightly cheeky. Do that on a solicitors site and you'll get a negative reaction. Ultimately every new visitor is a pitch for a sale so it's knowing about both the type of people who visit your site (also how they visit it will tell you something about that) and the types of people you'd be looking to attract. Just concentrating on numbers is wrong, particularly if none of those visitors is a realistic customer. At the end of the day we're hopping to attract people who are browsing and we know generally users will go visit several sites. If were creating a clearer and better message than your competitors that's going to give you a distinct advantage.
Once we've a distinct Idea about how best to sell your products or services then the design stage can really kick in.