Website design strategy & planning

Developing a new or updated website can be a major task that will require significant resources of time and money. Therefore, getting the initial planning process right will help the project run more smoothly and will often mean that costly revisions can be avoided in the future - to quote an old proverb, ‘failing to plan, is planning to fail’.

Before beginning the website design process, you should be clear about the objectives of the site and how your target audience might use it. You need to consider what structure and content a site will need and how it will be able to perform its tasks most efficiently. The site needs to be attractively designed as well as functional, with clear navigation paths, good usability and also an optimised structure so that it can be indexed by search engines.

The importance of planning is essential for the initial development of a new website, and for its medium to long term usage so that any additional sections or functions may be added when required. With all this information in mind, you need to prepare a site map diagram and identify what information will be included on all the sections and pages before briefing the web designer to begin the creative work.

Some of the issues to consider when planning a new website

• What are the main objectives of the website and how will these need to be achieved?
• How do competitive websites compare in what they offer?
• How will the site be structured and the copy be used to create the results required?
• How is the site expected to develop and expand in the future?
• How effectively will the site be able to get indexed by search engines?

How The Web Marketing Workshop can help

We work with a number of recommended web developers to produce websites for different market sectors and to different budgets. We can therefore identify the best company to create your new or updated website, or we can work with your own developers. As part of the strategic planning of your website so that it will achieve your marketing objectives, we can provide effective support, including:

• Identifying and agreeing your online marketing strategy so that your new website will target your objectives.
• Managing the website planning, design and development, either with our own outsourced partners or with your preferred suppliers.
• Planning the structure and content of the site, including navigation structures and a site map.
• Copyrighting the content, from the text on each page to the optimised metatags to help target your search engine rankings.

To find a more about how The Web Marketing Workshop can help you develop an effective new website for your business, contact us now for more information or to request our FREE 30-minute marketing report to get an idea of our approach.