Developing a website is a great way to quantify your business. In many ways developing a website is the same as developing a business plan with out all those annoying figures. During the process of developing a website you will need to work closely with your web developer to identify and quantify exactly what your business does. So that your website will reflect what your business is actually about and present what you do to your visitors in the most professional manner.
To most business owners this process sounds daunting. However it can be an extremely liberating process because if you devote yourself to the process and you have an experienced web developer you will not only wind up with a professional website, you will also be clear about the direction your business is heading.
To help you get your new website up and running as quickly as possible spend some time thinking about and where possible write your responses to the list of questions below. To assist in the process of developing a website at Binaryone we provide a free 1 hour consultation to get you started. Use our contact page to send us a message and we will arrange a time for your free consultation.
Website questions
1. Is this a new site or a redesign of an existing site?
a. New
b. Redesign
i. What is the purpose of the redesign?
ii. Are there current specific issues with the current site you hope to improve or correct?
iii. What is the web address of your current website?
iv. What do you like and dislike about your current system?
v. What audience needs does your existing site do a good job fulfilling?
vi. What audience needs aren’t being met by your current site?
vii. Where does it fall short?
2. In short, what does your organization do?
3. Who is your organization’s target market?
4. Describe the concept, project or services this site is intended to provide or promote.
5. Who will Binaryone be working with to guide this project to completion?
6. How many people at your organization will be involved with the project?
7. Who is responsible for making the final decisions?
8. Who will be responsible for maintaining the site after launch for content and technical matters?
9. To the best of your ability, describe the various groups that will use the site. What are they hoping to accomplish? EG:
a. Prospects seeking information about our company.
b. Customers who might purchase our product.
c. Customers looking for menu, hours and location information.
d. Donors who might contribute to our organization.
10. What are the general demographics of your audience (or site visitors)?
11. For the purposes of this site, which of these groups is the primary audience (the one you’d consider most important?) This can be difficult to identify, but it’s important to determine who the primary audience should be.
12. What primary action do you want your primary audience to take when visiting your site?
a. Fill in a contact form.
b. Ask for a quote.
c. Call you.
d. Find out where you are located.
e. Purchase a product,
f. Sign up for a newsletter.
g. follow you on social media.
13. Describe in as few sentences the feelings you wish your site to evoke in your visitors.
14. Describe in as few sentences the brand attributes you want your site to convey.
15. Using adjectives and short phrases, describe the site’s desired look and feel. Examples:
a. Easy to look at,
b. edgy,
c. classic,
d. up-to-date,
e. crisp,
f. modern,
g. traditional,
h. understated, etc.
16. Do you have a visual identity that you are happy with (including brand identity and logo) or is that something you need designed or evolved?
17. List around three competitors sites.
18. Also what you consider their strengths and weaknesses?
19. What differentiates your product, services or ideas from your competition?
20. Approximately how many pages do you think you will need on the site?
21. What features would you like to be included on the site? Examples include:
a. Ads/Billboards
b. Blog
c. Community Forum
d. Company News
e. Custom Page Not Found Page
f. Customer Lead Form
g. Event Calendar
h. Google Map(s)
i. Mailing List Integration
j. Member/Staff Protected area
k. Multiple Location Listings
l. Online Payment/Donation
m. Photo Gallery
n. Podcasting
o. Selling Products or Services (Ecommerce)
p. Social Media Integration
q. Staff Listing
r. Testimonials
s. Videos
22. Are there any third-party integration points we need to know about? Examples:
a. Interfaces to a CRM,
b. offsite e-commerce,
c. POS,
d. mapping solution,
e. social site or other use of a third party API, etc.
23. How much of the site content is already created? Content includes:
a. logo,
b. titles,
c. headlines,
d. page text,
e. staff bios and pictures,
f. testimonials,
g. photos, etc.
24. Would you like assistance with content creation?
25. Are there any other technical requirements for the site that you haven’t mentioned so far?
Questions About Ecommerce Sites.
If you want an ecommerce site these are additional questions you should consider.
1. Do you already know what ecommerce solution you want to use?
2. What kinds of products will you be selling?
3. Do you currently use third party sites for sales (like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, etc.)?
4. Will you sell memberships or access to premium content on your site?
5. Will your site sell downloadable products?
6. Will your products have multiple variations? Examples include:
a. sizes,
b. colors,
c. materials
d. price points.
7. Roughly how many products will be listed on the site?
8. Do you want the web site to track inventory?
9. Do you have product descriptions available?
10. Do you have high quality photos available for each product?
11. Do you want to allow product reviews or ratings from purchasers?
12. Do you want to add social sharing icons to product pages?
13. Will you offer an affiliate or referral program?
14. Do you want to build an email list of customers for promotional purposes?
15. Do you offer quantity discounts?
16. Do you want to offer coupons?
17. Do you want to offer gift cards?
18. Do you want to offer wish lists or registries?
19. Do you need to generate invoices or packing lists?
20. Do you offer preferred pricing to certain groups?
21. Will you use PayPal to process paymnets?
22. Do you have terms of service and refund policies in place for the site?
23. How will you handle customer service inquiries? EG: Questions About Time & Money.