Who is your target audience

At first sight this might seem an obvious question , but its the sort of question that is actually very difficult to answer, and one that most people prefer to answer in fairly general terms, like 'everybody' .
Websites can have very different uses, and depending on who your intended audience is, your type of design , type of software and how the site is designed will be determined.
The site may be a business site or a personal site, or a mix of both, especially if it is a small or family business. You may want the site to be a showcase for what your business does, or a showcase for a one off event, or series of events. Or you may want your website to sell goods that are part of your bricks and mortar business or sell goods exclusively online etc etc,
There are an infinite number of possibilities about how you might want to use your website, and each option will mean a different approach to how the website is designed and set up. The question then becomes , who is your website for, and this involves drilling down even more into the types of person you want to be reaching with your site and why.
There is an obvious logic to this, but its actually a very difficult question for most people to answer, or at least a question that a lot of people are unwilling to look at.Why people won't look at it , often is because they fear the answer will puncture the bubble they have built up about how successful the site will be.
Truth is, that if you get specific about the point of your website , in terms of the type of website you want and why, that is the key question you start off getting right.You can then design and market the site accordingly to the right people, both on and offline.
A failure to do that will simply mean that you're relying on guesswork and hope - two great attributes, but with web design , totally ineffectual because they perpetuate fantasy rather than reality.A commitment to specifics will pay dividends in the long and sort term. This has been a principle of newspapers and broadcasters fore a long time, that if you know your audience, then you will have a much clearer focus on what they want to know.