First of all, Intranets are not the same as web sites.
Your Intranet is a place where work happens.
Users build documents, collaborate and publish.
They drive business processes. Your company disseminates news.
Good Intranets strengthen connections between team members and help integrate disparate business systems.
Your Intranet is to information, as your office is to people.
An Intranet will live and die by its adoption.
Even well designed Intranets can wither on the vine without sponsorship from board level.
And a poor Intranet design will fail to engage your users, even with stakeholder buy-in.