Sixty-eight percent of consumers say COVID-19 elevated their expectations of companies’ digital capabilities.

–Social Media Today

If you are not focusing on a website strategy for meeting the expectations of 68% of consumers, you’re missing a huge opportunity. To get you there, we want to help you get clear on your goals and make sure you are putting your best foot forward in this digital world.

Let’s go over what you might consider in your website strategy for 2021.

What are your goals?

The first and most important thing to consider are your goals. It’s important to think about your business goals at a high level to start and not just your website goals (we’ll get to those, too).

• Has your business been required to shift this past year?
• Were you a brick and mortar that suddenly found themselves doing 100% of business online?
• Are you selling products, services, or both?

It’s important to get really clear about the ‘what’ here so that you have your north star that will help drive decisions as you work through your website strategy.

Some examples could be:

• Drive more sales to a specific sector of your business
• Build a more targeted email list
• Allow previously face-to-face services to become digital

Why are you setting this goal?

Having goals is great, but without a backing ‘why,’ you’ll have a harder time staying the course and hitting those goals. Sometimes the ‘why’ can take some work to get to but you really should take the time to get there.

Let’s say you’re a marketing manager at your company, and your boss comes to you and says, “Our goal for 2021 is to update the website!”

Okay… that’s great and all, but why? “It’s time and something we should have already done before.”

Hmm… but why? “We are not getting enough leads.”

Why not? “We’ve had to move from in person sales to digital sales and we’re not showing up on Google when people search for our services.”

Now we have an idea of what’s going on!

Leads that were coming from face-to-face business meetings because sales people were flying all over are no longer coming in. The website is not optimized for search engines, so it’s not showing up. Our goal is now to update the website, making sure it’s SEO optimized and things are in place to capture leads. Dig in and ask why as many times as you can until there are no more answers.

How do you plan on reaching these goals?

This is where the fun part begins. We’ve done the hard work of creating the goal and stating the why; now let’s figure out how to pull it off, specifically with your website.

• What do you need to reach your goal?
• Will it require updated branding guidelines?
• What third-party services might be helpful?
• Do you need to take payments online?
• Will people be booking to your calendar from the website?
• Is there some business process automation that could be helpful?
• Do we need to create something custom?

It’s important to list out all of the needs of your website strategy up front so that we can plan how all of those things will work together.

What does the outcome of a great website strategy include?

A great website strategy team will work with you to ensure that all of your ducks are in a row before you begin the project. This will allow the team(s) doing the set up, building, and integrations to have a clear vision of what the expectations are.

Here are a few things you would see:

• Project overview and timeline
• Branding guidelines
• User personas
• User paths or journeys
• Design mockups
• Technical and/or functionality details
• Level of effort
• Resource or people Requirements

Some of these may be items that you or your company have already prepared, or they may be things you need help piecing together. Having all of these packaged together will greatly increase the likelihood of a team knowing what success looks like for building or updating your website, and when you’re ready to work with a team to get you there, contact us!

The post Plan a Website Strategy to Meet Your 2021 Goals appeared first on WebDevStudios.

At WebDevStudios, our digital strategy team and project management office (PMO) take the responsibility of planning and organizing off your plate, just as a travel agent or guide would when planning your adventure. We partner alongside you, the client, to map out your website project. We uncover your site’s needs, create a detailed plan, help keep it on track, and ensure it reaches completion within your budget and on time.

Digital Strategy

We view digital strategy as the process to uncover the real goals and objectives of your website in order to make a detailed project plan. We pose questions like:

• What will the site look like?
• How will it function?
• What’s the timeline?
• How much will it cost?

Quite often, answers to questions like these provide the team with the right information to build out your project.

Project Management

Project management (PM) is the guide that helps the project follow the plan from execution to completion. We leverage not only our skills and experience but use PM processes and methodologies to get your web project to the finish line; meeting the agreed acceptance criteria, keeping it within budget and launching according to your deadlines.

Project Life Cycle

It all starts with a signed contract. The digital strategy team, along with your own team, will hold many collaborative calls; poking and prodding to find the true goals of the website. They want to understand the audience, the functionality, the look, etc. From here they build out a detailed plan and timeline.

The digital strategy team then meets with the PM of the project and those engineers that are building the site. They call this the ‘internal handoff,’ but don’t think this is where strategy steps away. They are around until the project is complete.

The PM on your project then watches closely; checking the work against the project plan, making sure the team stays on track and doesn’t get derailed. When questions come up during the build, the digital strategy team is right there with details on how it should work.

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

-Benjamin Franklin

Skipping the Process

What happens if you don’t want to use digital strategy and project management in your website project? Well, just imagine going on that trip mentioned at the beginning of this post without a plan. Would you find all the sites without a map? Unlikely. Would you find all the sights within your timeline out there? Probably not. Would you overspend? I bet!

Same goes for embarking on a website project. We all want to just start a project and get the perfect product. Without the proper planning of both digital strategy and project management, you will quickly find yourself constantly fixing things to meet your expectations, which ultimately costs time and money.

For example…

You want a simple block, logo, menu item that wasn’t originally planned for. Now, you have to find a place on your website for this new item.

It’s not just a matter of dropping it wherever. You have to bring in a designer, look at the placement, and maybe even move other features, have a call or two, develop it, and get approval from stake holders. Any change that takes place after the planning process can have a domino effect and push the timeline or require more resources, which ultimately costs you more money.

Every website project needs both digital strategy and project management.

Both digital strategy and project management are so incredibly important for any website project. We draft out what you really need and help keep the project from derailing. We ultimately are your biggest advocates and want to see your project succeed.

Need a team with an excellent strategy and project management team to help build your next website? Work with us!

The post Digital Strategy and Project Management: Your Website Project Needs Both appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Know and Understand Your Target Audience

The first task in the design process is to gather and analyze user data to determine your primary demographic. This can be done via analytics if you have an existing web presence, or focus groups and word of mouth information if you’re new to the web. In either case, you have some information about your target demographic that’s grounded in fact. Knowing and not making conjectures about which group of people are responsible for the largest and second-largest percentage of revenue is an important first step in laying the groundwork for a successful design.

The goal is to build for and strengthen the relationship you have with your primary demographic but to enhance the experience of your secondary demographic, while not actively trying to alienate other users. Knowing that you’re attempting to attract engaged couples, for example, and tailoring your design choices toward that demographic will go a long way to ensure your website is clear, appealing, and mitigate any potential loss in conversion as a result of a change in website design.

Each group of people informs aspects of design including colors, type choices, imagery, and layout just to name a few. But they also inform physical interaction with the website as well. Baby Boomers on average need some hand-holding when navigating websites, especially those that are content-heavy, while the 25-35 age group would be more adept at website navigation, but also expect certain considerations by default. Age or disability may also limit your color palette or font selections. If your target demographic are dyslexic your font choices are fairly limited to ensure that they can read and navigate without issue.

Many people may see a dip in conversion or sales because the users are completely taken aback by the change; this is normal for a new website design. The successfully planned design will ensure that you bounce back from that downward spike. The number of design considerations that are directly impacted by your demographic(s) is broad and ever-changing, but it’s never a good idea to design for yourself or because “it looks cool” when your driving force behind your new design is to increase user engagement or conversions.

Have Goals

Before you even speak with a designer, it’s imperative to understand the goal of your new website or even why you need a new website. Understanding the purpose of your website and/or why your current website isn’t successful is important in preventing similar pain points and issues down the line.

I typically ask clients one simple question, “Why?” Why do you need a new design? Really think about that, because “it looks old” does not necessarily make a difference if you aren’t sure why you need a website, or who your users are.

Your website might be out of date or isn’t mobile-friendly, but that isn’t a good answer to that question. Sure, updating things and making sure you’re mobile-ready is a fantastic way to improve user retention in the short term, but it’s just a temporary bandage. Your company should know what the goals of your website might be: user account registration, sales, interaction, sharing, etc. Obviously, there isn’t just one point of conversion on a website or one reason a user might visit, but knowing that along with your target demographic(s) can provide insight into how the users will interact with your new design, how you can provide easy access to your point of conversion, and funnel users without additional effort.

The Website is NOT for You!

It’s for your users. Of course, you have control over the design in as much as it should follow your brand guidelines, but beyond that, the fact that YOU like a slider or YOU love the color orange doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to include those elements, especially if it could harm user interaction and retention. You need to think about your users first and push personal preference to the wayside, keeping in mind that you are most likely not in your target demographic or age range.

One of the most common follies of new website design is to fall into a trend. Every year there are predictions for the next, and there are endless lists of trends based on the most popular website designs from the big five: Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. Those design decisions are based on data and planning and are made with a purpose. Apple may have a fatty animated header which informs the current trend, but adding this element to your website because it is the current trend or because it’s “cool,” and not because it improves the user experience, flow, or retention is a mistake. I’m going to go out on a limb and say unless you’re Apple, your product is not an Apple product. If your main source of revenue is user signups, that should be the first thing visible to a user on all pages in some respect (unless they’re logged in). If the first thing a person sees when visiting your website is unrelated to making that happen, your design has failed and your users will bounce.

Think about your users. Do you need to waste dollars on an app-like experience, or pages upon pages of dense content when a single HTML page and two paragraphs will get the job done? Be mindful of your goals and avoid trends to provide a more purposeful and timeless user experience.

Don’t Neglect the Content

Just because your design is in good shape doesn’t mean that your website will yield positive results. It’s important to consider content, content flow, content interaction, and client expectation when designing a new website. At a micro level, not considering “real” content may change the design in a way that isn’t favorable, pushing elements to new lines or cramping blocks that rely on white space to be successful. Since no content is created equal, an extra check in advance ensuring that your design and flow still function as expected, once the site is built, is greatly beneficial.

At a macro level, there are two reasons that your users are visiting your site: to get information and to do a thing. If either of those elements is abstracted by design, your website is a failure. In fact, content typically informs users enough to make an educated decision about what they want, where to get it, and how to get there. Providing content that is explicitly tailored to your users and your goals will provide an optimal user experience and direct and limit the design to bring focus to those goals. We’re not just talking about the “About Page” but information blocks and navigation, too. The biggest pain point for user interaction and user experience is just not being able to find the information they need at a glance.

Content in many ways is as important or more important than the design itself. The design may direct your users with proper formatting, call to actions, buttons, layout choices, etc, but content provides users with the ability to get the information they need and convert. The optimal and most direct path for a user helps to avoid frustration and cognitive dissonance.

Summation

Design is more than just pixels. The design gives a website purpose and an inherited understanding of users. Design controls user flow and direction. Design should build upon your brand and content and elevate the user experience on the web and mobile devices. Working design-first for your own personal tastes without an understanding of your users, the goals, or content your design will fail, no matter how “beautiful” your website might be.

Now, you’re ready to think about the future and the goals of your company, make informed decisions about your new website or app design, and really come to the table with a sound, rational reason for that amazing design.

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