Picture this –
You own a flower shop and delivery business. You put your store together so that the customer, upon entering will feel the flowers fill their senses and find your flowers irresistable.  You've created an environment based on your vision, and the experience you want to give your customers, so they find shopping at your store to be a satisfying encounter.

Then you put up a website and it's just text, a few pictures, and your address. As dull as your store is lovely.

The Environment
Think of your website as an extension of your business, a symbol, an identity consistent with the one you have developed. Now think of the experience that your customer has in your shop, and the environment you have created to make it that way. What you want to create something similar for your web visitors.

Defining what you see
So, what is the first thing a customer feels/sees/smells, etc. upon entering your store? The second? The third?

The visitor should experience a similar 'place' at your website. A look that goes with the rest of your image, extending it froom Main Street to the World.

A Visitor Centered Website
This is a way of thinking about your image that can apply to any medium, but all the more on the web, because of the plethora of information that exists.

Basically, it's about starting the whole process of creating and planning your website with your visitor at center stage. The web is all about the interaction between you and your visitors, so building your site to open that conversation makes sense, doesn't it? (I'm thinking about you right now!)