Preparing For Your Web Development Project
I thought I’d start off by stating the obvious - web projects are important.
They can be your business’ primary global presence as well as an integral part of how that business functions. Advertising, CRM, sales and business performance can all be addressed with a good quality web site.
So it’s pretty vital to get it right.
Getting it right means that some research and structured thinking need to take place even before you pick up the phone or write that email to someone to get things started. This needn’t take the form of a weighty reference tome – if the goals for your business online can be clearly stated you are well on your way.
Below are three broad areas that are the most important to consider – a good web development company (ahem) will have an experienced Pre-Production team that will give advice and help to iron out the specifics.
Business Requirements
The functionality and marketing focus of your business is of paramount importance to the success of your project. Who is your target audience? Is the site going to form your CRM? Will it automate ordering, track sales or compile reports? What sort of information are your customers looking for? Jot everything down. Ask all staff members for suggestions. Make the list as complete as you can.
Key Performance Indicators
How will you measure the success of your project? Tracking traffic and search ranking performance are standard requests but require ongoing work to achieve the best results. Direct Sales are another standard measurement for ecommerce sites, but there may be specific information that needs to be captured along with the raw sales data.
Other KPI’s may include numbers of qualified leads, amount of staff interaction with a new intranet or the user take-up of social networking functionality.
Ease of use, accessability or simple look-and-feel of a site are subjective but nonetheless important. To be an innovator in your market requires all of the above to be of exceptional quality and execution. A good service provider should be able to demonstrate skills and experience in these areas.
Primary Competitors
Whilst linked with the above section, a list of your main competitors online offerings is imperative to help both benchmark your project and discover opportunities for innovation.
Pre-Production will use it for a competitor analysis of usability, and functionality. Marketing can identify new and underutilised web strategies for maximum cut through. Design will look to differentiate and excel the appearance and usability of your competitors to help you stand out from the crowd.
Will these points in mind, your web project will be more eficent and effective, and will allow the people working on your project to deliver their very best results.
Which is exactly what everyone wants.
