Good planning is an important starting point for achieving results with an online business.

Classic management planning often includes eight major sections: vision, mission, values, strategies, goals, objectives, tactics and actions.

Major companies including media businesses emphasize many of these elements in the annual budget process. But building a complex Web operation – or even a small one — requires sticking to some simple but important parts of the plan throughout the entire year.

Internet managers who have prepared budget presentations with dozens or even hundreds of slides and documents know the frustration of making the presentation and then having the plan forgotton by upper management in the mad growth pace of Internet businesses. Inexperienced managers who lose sight of their own plans have ended up missing budgets and sometimes being unemployed.

Managers can edit a plan down to one or two pages and keep it readily available on a computer desktop; add parts of it to weekly staff meeting agendas; set up targets in reports (audience goals are especially overlooked during the year); or even build reminders into Outlook or other calendars.

Track the three most important numbers — audience, revenue and profit — against budget. Distribute the results regularly to staff and management. Shift time and attention over to the goal with a shortfall if one starts to show up.

The ability to track several major goals and stay on top of them regularly will result in a better-managed online business with stronger results in the long run.