David Lockie at WP-Brighton 2011 - Planning a successful website

Planning a Successful Website

David Lockie

Housekeeping • Visitors Marketing •

Content Calls to Action

Design • Workflow Infrastructure Commercials

Housekeeping

CC photo courtesy of blodgett esq.

Can you answer these questions?

• What do you do?• What are your brand & identity?• What are your key messages?• Who are your competitors and what

are they doing online?

How about these?

• What business purpose will your website serve?

• What are the specific objectives you want your website to achieve?

• What actual money value can you put against these objectives?

• What are your targets for the website?

You need to be able to answer these

questions simply and quickly

CC photo courtesy of puuikibeach.

You’ll need:

• A fair bit of time• Staff engagement• Internal alignment• Commitment• Some money

CC photo courtesy of nagy

Visitors CC photo courtesy of criminalintent

Who do you want to look at your website?

You don’t want the whole internet to

look at your website

This is the whole internet, it’s weird

You need to know your target audience

CC photo courtesy of lawro

CC photo courtesy of sally-aiden

Wally• Single• Young• Male• Likes:

travelling, red stripes, lurking

CC photo courtesy of infomatique

Marketing CC photo courtesy of nechbi

How are you going to tell your potential visitors about your

site?

Traffic Sources

• Natural search (do your keyword research)• Directories• Social media• Existing customer databases• Email marketing• Participate in online communities• PR/marketing/paid search campaigns• Offline/ambient - stationery, email

signatures

Get a plan together, then execute it when the site is ready to launch

Content CC photo courtesy of Verity Cridland

Substance, Structure, Workflow,

Governance

Timely, Interesting,

Relevant.

Content = Marketing

Don’t forget the details

• Terms and Conditions• Privacy Policy• Disclaimer• Accessibility Statement• Audit Trails

A Sitemap

• Home• About• Products– Products for men– Products for women

• News & Blog• Contact Us(excludes legal stuff, sitemap, etc)

Maps and journeysHow does your content link to your goals?

Calls to Action

CC photo courtesy of twicepix

Ask your visitors to do something that adds value to your

business

For example:

• Buy something• Contact you (by form, email or

phone)• Give you their contact details• Create a relationship or conversation

on social media or on your site• Tell other people about you• Spend longer looking at more pages

of your site

Design CC photo courtesy of

How can you express your brand

identity through your website?

How can you make your user journeys

clear and easy?

Avoid choice overload

CC photo courtesy of emilio labrador

Workflow CC photo courtesy of humdrumboy

Be as lazy as you can

• What’s the easiest way to keep your site updated

• Connect your business systems: make automation work for you

• Syndicate content: publish once, reach many

CC photo courtesy of landscape_leadership

Don’t waste effort

Stay lean through analysis

• Plan to collect data:– Visitor traffic– Enquiries– Sales

• What content works and what doesn’t?

• Which pages do visitors like?

Measure -> Analyse -> Insight -> Change ->

AMRAP

Infrastructure CC photo courtesy oftheplanetdotcom

You’ll need

• Domain name & hosting• Email hosting (and maybe SaaS)• Web hosting• Maintenance & staging hosting• Backups

Commercials CC photo courtesy Images_Of_Money

Key Commercial Decisions

• Do you need professionals, or can you use off-the-shelf options and in-house skills?

• Who might you need? Internal Project Manager, Copywriter, Designer, Developer

• Timeline• Budget• Deliverables• Project Management

Final Thoughts CC photo courtesy jemstone

• Start with the simplest version you can, then learn what works

• A good website is never finished - what does your Phase 2 look like?

• A website should always be an investment, not a cost

• Always build your website for your visitors, not for yourself

Any Questions?

David Lockie@divydovy

www.divydovy.com