What makes a good web strategy?
Building a website is not the same as a web strategy. It facilitates the successful (or unsuccessful) implementation of your strategic action points, it allows for feedback on your strategy from users in such forms as traffic or conversion and it puts your strategy in touch with the other elements which may be needed for it to succeed (social networking, bloggers etc).
Plan, Design, Build and Maintain… this is quite often described by clients as their ‘web strategy’. That describes a process to build a website, not a strategy for a successful website. Deciding on your platform or using flash is not a strategy – that is just technology. A strategy is also not just about setting KPIs. A good web strategy gives you the means to achieve the site KPIs and should be built to achieve these targets but it has to extend past the present and encompass longer term goals.
An effective web strategy is the translation of a business’s objectives and values into a high level set of directives for its; online presence, functionality and desired user response. It maps objectives to action points and action points to user interaction, conversion or sales.
For any strategy to be completely successful it requires four things:
- A set of guidelines or guiding principles (a roadmap)
- Business objectives specific to the website
- A set of strategic action points – ie: ‘how are we going to achieve our objectives '
- A clear and definite chain of command (ie: who can affect major changes to the site without consultation)
Guiding Principles: Guiding Principles are the pillars that support the strategy. They are high level but not ambiguous. They adhere to the values of the company or business and are the benchmark to which all decisions should be measured.
For example: A guideline for the overall business site might be ‘to make it easy for our customers to find what they need’. So if the site cannot meet this guideline it is outside the boundaries of what the strategy requires to be successful and so it fails to meet the strategic objectives.
‘Provide simple means of feedback and contact’ If the site requires the user to search for contact options, if forms are convoluted or confusing then the site is flawed. This can be tied to a KPI that requires an increase in online contact and a decrease in phone contact.
Such guidelines are what give people within a business the tools to make grass root decisions. If everyone understands these principles then it provides a straight road, a well lit path that translates directly to the desired user experience.
Business Objectives: Business objectives are the key to a good web strategy. If you don’t know what you are trying to achieve then the strategic guidelines become meaningless and you end up achieving nothing.
Business objectives are about establishing the business or website goals and plotting the roadmap for where the site is heading. Defining measurable goals, how the goals will be measured, the technological implementation to achieve the goals, relevant industry trends and learning from others will help build these goals. ‘Become the most recognizable online brand in our space’ is a business objective that can be broken in multiple action points, measured with some accuracy and is achievable with the right strategy.
Short term objectives can also become part of the initial web strategy especially when first launching a site or an online brand. Quick awareness and gaining traction are important and can lead the initial strategic planning. In these cases it is important to build a phased strategy, so the first short term strategy doesn’t restrict the site’s success in the long term.
Strategic Actions: The strategic action points are the measurable decisions made that will be implemented in planning, designing, building and maintaining the website. An objective of becoming the most recognisable brand since eBay may have an action point or ‘strategic direction’ to optimise every page of the site to reach number one in Google for certain key words. It becomes part of the strategy that every page must contain the elements required to gain maximum search benefit, and in turn that helps to achieve a business objective and can be easily measured.
Another objective may be that the site gives all users equal access to information and services without prejudice. The strategy is to conduct user testing and prototyping before implementing into HTML. This strategic objective clearly facilitates the overall site objectives.
Authority: The third element is defining who has authority over the web site and the strategy. In many businesses there is a struggle between departments all fighting for their space on the site. Different agendas and different strategies are fatal to a website’s success. All departments have to agree on the web strategy, on their business objectives and the future goals of the entire business, not just their department.
For a web strategy to be implemented and followed through, there should be someone, or some group in charge of what happens to the site. They follow the guiding principles, they are aware of KPIs and they are accountable for the sites performance. Sometimes a small change to a website can affect so much, shoehorning a new form onto the homepage, changing the tone of voice or pushing advertising can produce detrimental results to the user experience, conversion rates and KPIs. The web strategy can then no longer be successful – it has to be changed to match the website instead of the other way around.
When building a website, whether for a small business or a large corporation the theory should be the same. Define a web strategy that allows for company objectives to be achieved, company values to be clearly apparent and identify the people who can implement and maintain the integrity of the strategy.
Whether good or bad, a website is the most powerful communication, sales or commerce tool available and the successful ones all have robust and structured web strategies behind them.
