Here are more things to take into consideration before you do anything:
Content: What will your content be? What will you have on each web page? Is it going to be something different than the usual stuff? Or are you going to offer something completely unique? Something to think about.
Updates: How often will you update your site? Are you going to do it on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis? No matter how often you do it, will you have access to the site so you can make the changes? What software will you use to make the web pages to begin with? Will updating the site going to be easy or do you have to make complete alterations in the site design to update it?
Format: What format will your site be in? Are you going to have all text on the site or a mix of text and graphics? Are you going to use animation or just use a couple of forms? The key here is to know what type of content will be on each web page. Since many people have slow Internet connections, you will need to have all graphics optimized for the web. So know ahead of time what you will be putting on each page.
Time: One major factor in website design is time. It takes time to create the site to the specifications you want. Unless of course you use a template. This is a web page that has everything pretty much on it already. You just have to rearrange everything to fit on the page correctly.