Your Business Needs a Website – No Problem, Right?
May 26, 2011
Almost any business today, new or old, has a web presence. From lawn mowing services to car dealerships to candy stores, it seems everyone has a web site. If you’re in the planning stages of a new business, you’re likely consumed with executing your business plan and getting the business off the ground. If you run an existing business, you’re in the thick of keeping customers happy and the business profitable.
A website shouldn’t be that hard to get going… after all, your neighbor’s nephew is really good with computers and has been creating websites since he was in grade school. Or there is a web development company locally that has done lots of websites for other small- to medium-size companies. One of them can create a brand new website or jazz up the existing one, right?
Well…maybe. There are lots of web development tools that make creating a basic website very easy. But your business needs something more than a basic website. It needs to capture the essence of what sets you apart from your competitors. It needs to clearly communicate how you do business differently from your competitors. How do you do that? By planning and defining the website BEFORE your super star coders start building or modifying it.
You’ll need to think about the following:
- What is the purpose of the web site? Is it just to disseminate information? Or are you trying to sell a service that they must order by picking up the phone? Or can they the product directly from the site?
- Who is the audience for the site? Are they sophisticated and savvy users or are they more likely to be occasional computers users?
- What does the site need to do and how should it work? These are called the “Requirements”.
The first two items above can be described in six to ten bullet points, but the Requirements will take some time. You’ll need to consider the following areas:
- Website administration
- Options/Features
- User Experience
- Interfaces
- Reporting and Analytics
When creating the Requirements, having a business analyst/consultant who is not affiliated with the web development provider can be an advantage. He or she brings an unbiased, independent view and can focus on what is truly best for the company rather than what might work best for the skill sets within the web development company. Milestone Advisors, LLC can provide just this type of resource. Our Technology Practice consultants are experienced in all aspects of business analysis.
A key issue to remember: The Requirements need to be measurable and provide a basis for testing the final product. In future blog posts, we’ll discuss how to write effective and measurable requirements for a website. For more details, see the
Milestone website or contact us at: info@milestoneadvisors.net.