Get your website planning off to a great start!

Many organisations may be thinking of reinvigorating their brand for 2023 and creating a great first impression and a new or improved website should be at the top of your list! However, where do you start and what are the important elements to consider when approaching a web development agency? We’ve put together some tips that will get your website planning off to a great start and help you understand what as a web agency we need to know.

YOUR STORY 

To start it’s important that you tell us about your company and what you do. Include some back history, where you are now and the scale of your business and where you see it going. The first step is to tell us a bit about your company and give us an idea of what it is that you do.

KEY OBJECTIVES

Give us some idea of your short and long term goals for the business/ website? This might include things like ‘we want to double our conversion rate over the next year’ or ‘we want to grow a particular area of our business’. Providing just a few key bullet points, can give us a good insight into what you are looking to achieve through the website build.

LOGO & BRANDING

Do you have an existing logo and brand guidelines, or do you need some refinement or perhaps a new brand and logo? It’s essential that we know this as the branding will influence the whole overall design of the website.

AUDIENCE

We’ll need to understand your target audience so that we can design the website in a way that appeals to them. Therefore, provide as much information about your existing and potential customers you’d like to be targeting.

YOUR EXISTING WEBSITE

If you have a current website it’s important that you evaluate what you like and don’t like about it. What has worked well for you, what hasn’t? What elements you’d like to include and what elements you think you’d like to improve on?   

COMPETITORS AND BENCHMARKS  

Which websites do you admire? What features do they have that you’d like to include? What are your competitors doing that you like and what do you think your website could do better? These are all important elements to consider and by providing links and real-life examples it will help to understand your desired outcome.

CONTENT

Content is king when it comes to your website. Therefore, it’s important that you get your content sorted as soon as possible. If you have your content ready from the outset it helps to define the structure of the website and helps to move the development along faster. However, if you’re looking for help with your content it’s important to inform and specify whether this will just include written content or whether images and videos will need to be sourced and this will need to be factored into the scope and planning phase.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

It is essential that you consider technical requirements when planning your website. Will it require a news-feed, an online booking system, e-commerce, search facilities, payment and shipping requirements?  All these elements play an important part in the development of your website and are essential for the development team to understand your requirements exactly so that your expectations can be managed accordingly.  

FUTURE PLANS

It’s essential that if you have a vision for your website moving forward that you have a discussion around what this will look like. By doing this and considering the elements you’d like to include later down the line it’s easier to future proof your website rather than re-visiting it later on and finding out that your requirements aren’t possible!

BUDGET

It’s important to be up-front with your budget as it gives your website agency a rough idea of what realistic requirements can be met within the scope of your project. A greater budget will allow for more time spent on UX design, custom functionality and interactive elements, whereas, if your budget is minimal it may be a better option to look at off the shelf DIY options through online providers

DEADLINE

Deadlines are essential in meeting everybody’s requirements. Therefore, if you have a deadline that you need to meet be up-front about it. If it can be met – great! However, if your requirements are going to take longer it’s essential that you are informed, allowing you to decide if that is something you can work with or if another provider needs to be sourced.     

At 10 Digital we’ve taken the hard work out of providing all of this information with a quick and easy website questionnaire that will help us to scope and quote for your website. So if you’re looking to refresh, reinvigorate or simply create a new website for your business get in touch!