When defining your site's purpose, the first thing to establish is if will be a personal or business site.  This may sound obvious, but many times a business site, especially those for one-person shops, becomes blurred with personal information such as a political opinion blog or photo gallery of pets.  So, from the start, establish if your site will be personal or business. 

Let's focus on business sites and drill-down further on the types of sites.  Basically, they are:

• E-brochure
• Informational
• E-commerce

Granted, elements of all three are usually found in some form in each type.  But, from a content management perspective, it's important to choose one primary type because it will drive the design, development, and administration of the site.

E-brochure:  Consider an E-brochure site to be much like a print brochure or catalog.  It's relatively static, meaning once it's up and running, content does not change very frequently. Here, content management is not an essential apsect of the site. But, if you want to get found by search engines, this is not good.  Search engine optimization (SEO) requires fresh content on your site.

Informational: This is like a newspaper or newscast where the content changes or is updated with more frequency.  An Information site is a perfect candidate for a content management system.

E-Commerce: This is a site that sells goods.  The phrase most often associated with this type of site is Shopping Cart.  The focus may be more on ad copy than information. 

The temptation may be to say, 'I want a little of each,' which is fine.  Most sites are hybrids.  But from a content management perspective, you should establish from the start what type of site you're building and how much time you want to invest in manageing the content.  For example, if you just want to sell garden supplies, chances are a shopping cart will be your focus.  Ad copy, once written, won't change often.  But, if you want to establish yourself as an expert in gardening, and hence build credibility in both yourself and the products you sell, consider setting up an informational site which includes a shopping cart.  Keep in mind that you will be investing more time in content creation with an informational site.  But if your goal is to get good rankings on search engines, fresh content is critical. And, you're building up your reputation as a subject authority.