Important questions business owners, managers and marketing managers must ask before embarking on a web design project.
1. Why have a website?
Important question. Here’s why. Answer this question to determine the single most important reason why you need a website. Because every company has a website except us, is not an answer. Here’s a tip, no, it’s actually a challenge. Improve the lives of your customers with your website.
2. What must the website achieve?
Before you ask what your website should look like, rather ask what should it achieve? You should have clearly defined goals that can be measured. Examples of goals can be increasing sales conversions, newsletter sign up conversions and increasing website traffic.
3. What will be our usability testing strategy?
You’ll notice that I’m asking what will be your usability testing strategy and not; Will you have a usability testing strategy? Your website’s success depends on the successful interactions with users – I like to call them people because that’s what we are. If people struggle to find things, download a file, sign up or buy a product then you’ve lost out on possible revenue. The only way to know if your website is used as you intended it to be used is to do usability testing. This guy rocks at usability testing.
4. How often will we update the site and who will do it?
If you plan on updating your website on a regular basis it may be a good idea to invest in a Content Management System (CMS). Although the initial investment in a CMS can be substantial, it can prove worthwhile in the long run. A CMS is a web software that allows anyone with computer literacy to update and maintain a website. Be sure to include this consideration before you embark on a web design project.
5. Must we show up on search engines?
Along with your overall online marketing strategy, your SEM and SEO strategy needs to be defined from the outset of your web design project. Why? Because websites have to be developed in a specific way to be as findable as possible for search engine spiders.
6. Which web design agency will we work with?
Excellent question. Thanks for asking. Now there are thousands of web designers and small agencies popping up like mushrooms all over the place and there are big agencies that charge small fortunes. Making a choice can be overwhelming and confusing at best. The best advice I can give as a business owner is this. Think of your web design agency in terms of a love relationship. You need to trust each other and confide in each other. There will be teething problems as with any love relationship but there will also be chemistry and comradeship and integrity. The web design agency should be able to demonstrate their abilities and show how their work has positively contributed to their clients businesses.
7. How much money do we need to spend?
Touchy subject, I know, but revealing your budget is something you absolutely have to let any online marketing agency know about. If you don’t want to reveal your budget, many top quality agencies won’t even consider working with you. Without revealing your budget you’re asking for web agency’s to quote blindly. Now I know you may, and most people do, have reservations about this because you think the web design agency will try and see what they can get away with. This all comes down to the trust and integrity factor again.
Defining your web design and development budget is one thing, but remember this. If you need your website to be found on search engines and if want to continually attract visitors and prospects to your website, it will need fresh content on a regular basis. This means regular updating, maintenance, marketing and copywriting budgets need to be considered.
Here is a list of the basic services you should budget for:
- Web Hosting (Traffic and Bandwidth usage)
- Design and Development of website
- Online Copywriting / Content Creation
- Usability testing
- Monthly Maintenance
- Monthly Marketing (SEM and SEO)
Well. I sincerely hope this post helps. Any questions, web design related, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
