Pretty often new site is starting with purchasing template and then all the development is focused and dictated by this template, rather than business needs. We recommend to follow these steps when setting a new online presence:

1. define purpose and strategy (in phases)

a) corporate and service marketing (one-way communication)
b) interactive portal (two-ways communication, feed-back, membership)
c) social portal (3-ways communication, members can communicate with each other)
d) e-commerce
e) special functionality - e.g. mass-mailing

2. define structure and navigation map

a) main sections
b) primary and secondary menu
c) landing pages for SEO (not necessarily always be front page)
d) desired workflow and goals - from which page to which we want visitor to go
e) 'call to action' - what user have to do to achieve the portal purpose

3. define static and dynamic components for each page/section

a) source of content
b) behaviour (e.g. slide-show or rolling news)
c) user interaction with elements

4. layout - THIS IS WHERE WE CAN CHOOSE THE MOST SUITABLE TEMPLATE OR BUILD THE ONE FROM SCRATCH

a) configuration and adjustment of the page template(s)
b) adding blocks and sections
c) forms and interactive components (mail templates)
d) custom coding

5. filling with content

a) items, articles, images, texts
b) categories and hierarchy
c) cross-references and dynamic sets

6. initial optimization for search engines

a) keywords
b) meta-tags
c) defining campaigns and budget

7. pre-launch

a) proofreading
b) functional testing
c) statistics configuration

8. launch, support and maintenance

This is pretty brief plan - a lot of activity under each item if we want to do it proper way and have quick return on investments. Some items can be done in parallel, some postponed. But sooner the decisions is made, sooner the goals will be achieved.