A website is a powerful marketing tool that can help you reach a larger audience, promote your brand, and drive sales. But before you can reap the benefits of a new or updated website, you need to manage the project from start to finish properly.
1. Define Your Goals
The first step in any website project is to define your goals. What do you want your website to achieve? Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar store, or generate leads? Once you know what your goals are, you can develop a plan to achieve them.
2. Assemble Your Team and Choose Your Platform
Next, you'll need to assemble your team. If you are a marketing director of a small team, you may need to engage an outside agency to help with the technical components of your site. It’s important to select a partner that understands your business needs and can provide you with the platform that works for your team. There are a number of different Content Management Systems (CMS) available, so it’s important to understand what each one brings to the table. We suggest interviewing multiple partners and understanding their process before making a selection.
3. Create a Timeline
Once you have your team in place or an agency selected, it's time to create a timeline for the project. This will help keep everyone on track and ensure that the project stays within budget. Be sure to allow some wiggle room in your timeline in case there are any unforeseen delays. With a website build, it’s important to stay flexible yet firm.
4. Understand Your Audience
Before you start building your new website, it’s important to understand your audience, their needs, and their pain points. By knowing how to solve their problems, you will be able to build a website that meets their needs.
5. Create Content For Your Users
User-centric content is key to the success of your website. By taking time to think through how the website will flow from area to area, you may avoid some pitfalls later on. In the previous step, make sure you understand the gaps missing from either your current website or your competitors’ website. This will help you to develop content for your users.
6. Start Designing
A good website team will lay the foundation before they start designing. It’s important to understand key factors before you invest time into the layout and overall aesthetic. Design should reinforce your content with visual cues and storytelling. Design and development generally work in tandem to build out the final website, including animations, movements, and specific features like a quiz.
7. Launch Your Website
Once your website is complete, it's time to launch it! This is where all of your hard work will finally pay off. Be sure to promote your new website across your other marketing channels to drive traffic and achieve those desired results.
8. Analyze and Optimize
Now is where the hard work begins. You will want to analyze your website’s performance and make updates regularly. This will ensure that your site is not only performing well but it’s meeting the changing needs of your audience. This will help you ensure that your site is performing as well as it can be and making the most of its potential.
With these steps, you can successfully manage your website project from start to finish. Just remember to keep your goals in mind and assemble a great team to help you along the way. If you are looking for a website partner, please don't hesitate to reach out to our team.
