9 Points of Attention and Questions When Developing Your New Website
You will surely agree with us when we say that technologies follow each other rapidly, but have you ever looked at how your favorite websites looked 5 years ago? Developments in graphics certainly progress just as fast, but this also means your website quickly appears outdated! A website developed 5 years ago is hopelessly behind, but this can also apply to a website that is only 2 years old! What should you pay attention to when you – once again – start working on a new website, and how do you prevent having to start over again in 2 years? We briefly cover 9 topics that are essential in this process.
New business to business website: points of attention
1. Positioning – Positioning can tell you a lot about all aspects of your website. We always formulate positioning in the form of a story, and that story tells about how you interact with your customers and relations, and thus also about your website! We recently wrote: The meaning and definitions of positioning & Distinctive positioning in 7 steps.
2. Goal – Are you going to sell via a webshop, attract new prospects, or engage with your current customers? Maybe you just want to inform? These questions largely determine how your website should look. Our advice is therefore to first clearly define, for example together with the sales department, what role the website should play in the sales process.
3. CMS / Programming language – In the past, a website was designed and then made ‘web-ready’. Nowadays, almost all websites operate from a database and the same data could be used for 2 completely different looking websites. The system in between is called a Content Management System (CMS). We strongly recommend using one of the most popular CMS systems, this makes you less dependent on your supplier and only a few websites worldwide need custom-made systems. For example, we have a preference for WordPress.
4. Design – The design can be seen as the shell of your website. A shell that surrounds your database and CMS. The design ensures that your visitors view all data in a recognizable and clear way. Essential in design is recognizability. Leave radical extravagances to the designer; they only confuse your visitors. Use a clear navigation structure and ensure all essential information is reachable within 2 clicks. If you have chosen a good CMS, you can relatively easily (at significantly lower costs) change the design without having to redo the rest.
5. Lifespan – How long should the website last? If you chose a good CMS, the question is more how long your design will last, because the database will still be perfectly usable in the CMS version 5 years from now.
6. License (costs) – Make sure that after 1 year of use you don’t have to pay expensive license fees for the CMS or used software. Open-source software often offers a (better!) alternative in almost all cases.
7. Accessibility and maintenance learning curve – How easy is it to make changes in the CMS yourself? How simple is it for the receptionist to add a contact person? If you take this into account from the start, development may cost you a bit more but you will be sure not to receive unnecessary and hefty maintenance bills.
8. Target audience – Who will be your visitor? Often these are your customers or prospects, so go and find out what characterizes them, how do they use sites and applications? Then align everything you do to this group. Often companies focus blindly on visitor numbers and forget the basic goal their website must serve; helping with sales!
9. Expansion possibilities – Facebook has been bigger than Hyves for less than 2 years, so the chance that in 3 years a new website or application will be completely hot is 100%! Therefore, make sure you don’t have to dig deep into your pockets to be able to use this new application as well. Within open-source systems, these services are often integrated first, but a commercial CMS may have very different interests!
Of course, there are many more considerations, but if you cover these 9 topics you can be sure your website will have the functionality and lifespan you want.
