When it comes to creating your website, you want to do it right the very first time. Companies need to educate themselves before planning a website for their business. The more planning & groundwork you do, the easier it is to make informed decisions on technical or design issues. Another benefit of systematic planning is when you bring in the professionals; you can save a great deal of time (and money) by having a basic structure ready to work on for them.
In this blog post we try to summarise a few simple considerations you should bear in mind while undertaking the web project.
What is the purpose of your website?
It is vital to think about your short term and long term goals when you are planning a website for your business. Are you trying to sell your product or idea? Deliver services or information? Offer support to your customers? Fund-raise for your charity or creating awareness? If it is to generate sales, your site will be different to the site which is created (with a goal) to raise money for your charity. If your website is destined for selling merchandises on-line, you will need an e-commerce website that has a shopping cart and a payment counter. If you want it to be a Charity site you should think about creating awareness through relevant current information that would appeal your visitors to donate. There is no ‘one size fits all’ website prototype and without a clear goal you’ll struggle to develop an effective web presence for your organisation.
Who are your audience and what message you want to convey?
Targeted audience and their web sensibility are crucial in order to get the maximum output of your website. If you will provide everything from the visitor’s viewpoint, your business will greatly benefit. You can consider interviewing broad spectrum of your targeted audience to visualise a clear picture of your users’ journey through your website to get best out of it.
Consider studying your competitors’ or clients’ websites.
Devote some time to understand what else is available across the internet. What do you like or dislike about your competitors’ or clients’ websites? Are you missing something worth considering? Find websites with similar aims to yours, to see how they’ve designed and organised their content. Navigate 8-10 sites to get a clear idea of current trends. Make notes on how they have used social media links, blog posts, promotions etc. Avoid making the common mistakes they might have made.
Create informative content for your website.
Keeping the website’s purpose in mind, make a list of the content that will be informative, and necessary. Organize the right content to fit your target audience’s needs. If you are not the person who writes, then find someone or hire a professional. It also plays an important role in gaining desired Page Rank for your website in the search engines. Make sure to get it proof read for SEO and marketability. The quality of your content and keywords greatly affects your site’s ranking in search engine results.
How will you manage and maintain the site?
Depending on the nature of the website, changes and updates may need to be made on a daily basis. Will these updates, etc., will be done in-house? What level of expertise is required to do this? Do you have resources to manage and maintain the website? When you pass your strategies on to a web development professional, ask them to consider your website maintenance strategy.
Consider ‘future proofing’ your website.
This means your website having an in-built facility to expand as per your changing requirements. You don’t want to have to rebuild the site again from the scratch, every time you want to introduce a new idea or product. This is especially important because of ever-changing technologies and gadgets. Make sure your site is constructed with development in mind, and can be upgraded as per the need of the hour.
You might find that planning and developing a website is a time consuming process. However, by taking these steps in advance, you will avoid a lot of costly mistakes and ensure that your website is successful.
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