Web site development is one of the most challenging aspects of starting an online business. Here are online project management's best practices that may help in effectively developing your web site.

1. Set your objectives. Just like in any project, online or otherwise, being definite in your final goals will necessitate the determining of objectives. Objectives serve as guides to anyone who is trying to achieve something. Whether you intend to sell your products online or to offer customer support, decide carefully and clearly about what you want to achieve in a specific duration of time. Take note of critical factors for success and make sure that they are measurable.

2. Do some stakeholder analysis. Stakeholders are those who have interest in a business. Decide and define clearly who these people are and assess if they are supporting your project. Classify them as low or high depending on their influence, contribution and motivation to the project. Target the reduction of those who are against the project because they could possibly damage it. Think of strategies to deal effectively with the stakeholders.

4. Make intelligent estimates of the effort and time that are required for the activities. Set budget and schedules that are realistic. Make sure that the key stakeholders are amenable with all the concepts, ideas and processes involved.

5. Make defined deliverables. The tangible products during the entirety of a project should be a topic of a stakeholders' meeting. Decide with them if you will include designs such as sitemap or layouts to be used and maintained by the programming team. Talk out with the stakeholders the web page content. All key stakeholders should review the deliverables and mutually agree on the expected deliveries of the project.

6. Schedule a project planning day. State clearly what the steps should be to achieve your goals. Consider the number of people, the major resources and the budget that will be required. For instance, is hiring a web designer to develop navigation and layouts in the web site be necessary? Remember to specify the expected deliverables of these people.

7. Track your project religiously. Constantly monitoring the project's variations relating to the planned and actual costs plus scope and schedules among other things, is a must. These variations must be reported to key stakeholders, who in turn should agree on what corrective action to take.

8. When necessary, decide on a simple change of strategy with major stakeholders. In some cases, this part of the business may be handled by a committee. Make assessments relating to the impact and effect of the changes that have been agreed among stakeholders and decide in finality whether to reject or accept the changes. Never be tricked to blindly accept the changes absent assessment of their impact or your business.

9. Learn to manage risks. Certain unavoidable events can affect a project's success in a significant way. Learn to identify project risks at an early stage, decide if these are likely to occur and assess if the effect they bring to the project is low or high.

These practices in website project management ensure that your online business will gain the best chances of success.