Prioritise what is needed to launch the new site

• FYI, site is never going to be “finished”… it needs a good starting point to then evolve and a become day-to-day company tool
• Find the gaps and populate with working – if not final – copy
• If the ‘About’ section isn’t finished for example – just do what is required to be presentable (if not complete) and launch

Final review of existing content

• Oftent there is copy from the old site put onto the new pages – it should be reviewed to be updated/edited or signed off.  (A very quick hit)
• Revise the About pages – ‘Background’ vs History, ‘Meet The Team’.. with bio’s if not photos, Register page etc.
• Review content of the side bars – does it make sense, we can customise sidebars by page
• Bite off ‘chunks’ of the site to work on… don’t try and do all at once!

Work offline – use Word

• Don’t create in WordPress unless you have a clear idea of what to say or a shorter post
• Much easier to use Word to create/edit and then use WordPress to format and publish

Prioritise existing and new content

• Be realistic about content – if you cant get 500 words on XXX for example, take what you can and edit.
• Consider scheduling more advanced features – online application forms, checkout functions etc. for phase 2
• Remind yourself and the company directors that the website is not for them or you – its for your target audience.  Decisions on content must be made with audience in mind.

Brainstorm new content (however farfetched)

• Twitter feeds for example – why? What does it add to the site? What’s is going to say, what’s its objective?
• Enquiry form, Testimonials, Client Case Studies (either sponsored or anonymous)
• Conduct competitor analysis – what do they say, what features to they have, what could work for you?
• Consider taking team photos – we all maybe camera shy but personalising the site has a great impact encouraging contact… lets people put a face to a name when they call.  A easy step up in building a relationship

Schedule the ‘news’ (if you have a blog)

• At least weekly, at worst monthly
• brainstorm ideas – industry related both local and national, hot topics, “in the media”, parking, local news, company events (XXX’s sponsored skydive)
• Get everyone involved – delegate features to colleagues so they are more invovled in the site

Whether content is king, or, navigation is king (can’t have great content if people can’t find it), or whether aesthetics are king (only in mind of the designer perhaps!) but the article makes good sense of audience though processes that every designer must pay close attention to.

Read the full post entitled – Human Behavior Theories That Can be Applied to Web Design.

I also have contacts from individuals and businesses  who want a helping hand setting up the site… demystifying the domain purchase and management, to hosting accounts to design and content support.

In both cases, I often find myself asking clients the same questions.  Who are you, what do you do, what do you want, what do you the site to be, what messages do you want the site to ‘say’ to your audience… etc etc.

As such I have a pre-project document which aims to help focus clients’ minds on what is required.   Firist thing I need to get across is that its them providing the content, I can often drive, support and manage but I know websites, and not their business.

Found another great list which I am going to add to my pre-project document… a great list anyone thinking of a website should be hammering out for themselves as soon as possible.

http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/20-questions-to-know-for-avoiding-website-project-disasters/

1. How do you describe your organization/business in one sentence?

Amazingly, many small businesses have never taken the time to answer this one simple question. By getting this insight from them, you’ll have an anchor to tie together the entire project. If the client can’t do this, the project is likely to end up as a messy site that lacks focus.

2. What three words describe your organization/business?

Tough? Yes. Important? Extremely. Users need to quickly understand what a business website has to offer, and why they should care. These three key words will help develop a clear message for the site’s users and can drive everything from the website color palette to information architecture. They can also help with SEO in some cases.

3. What makes you unique?

In marketing lingo: “What’s your value proposition?” Helping the client define what makes them stand out from their competition can be one of the most helpful insights you can attain at the forefront. If you know what makes them unique, you have a great basis for building a website on.

4. How do you describe your primary site audience?

Is the audience young? Old? Web-literate? Knowing the audience can influence everything from the font size and style to the navigation approach.

One word of caution on this one: Many clients will describe their ideal audience rather than the one that actually visits their site. Take their input as opinion and validate whatever you can through analytics reports if they have an existing site. If it’s a new site, you may be able to gain some insights by studying competitor sites through web tools like Compete.com.

5. How much time do you think the average visitor spends on the site per visit?

This question can help determine the width/depth of the site and the navigation structure, as well as the site features that are needed. For example, if the site you’re building is a community-driven site, then you’ll want to consider some game mechanics that will help increase user participation and have them stay longer on the site. Again, check this against real web analytics results whenever possible.

6. What is the primary purpose of the site? What’s the secondary purpose?

Many clients want their site to be everything to everyone. By writing down a single primary purpose, they’re setting direction for the site. Is the purpose to generate a contact? Sell an item? Inform the visitor? Induce some other action?

7. Is your primary focus on long-term repeat visits or short-term single visits?

With this information, you can help the client determine whether the content of the site will drive their focus. A brochure-ware site won’t encourage repeat visits because the content will be static for long periods of time. A daily blog might not make sense if one-time visits are the primary focus. Questions like this position you as an expert so you can help them reach their goals.

8. If a visitor spends 2 minutes on your site, what three things (in order of priority) do you want them to know?

This question is all about limiting scope creep and defining the goals of the site. With this information, and the answers in some of the questions from above, you should have a crystal-clear picture of what the site needs to do from the client’s perspective.

9. Who are your major competitors?

As part of your research phase, it’s helpful to know and look at who the competitors are to see what works and what doesn’t in their particular industry. The goal here is to see if you can produce a product that outdoes the competition, which is something your clients will love you for.

10. What sites do you like?

It’s helpful to see what good sites are in the eyes of your client: sites that have features, layout, content or design that appeals to them. Almost every experienced designer has run into a case where multiple mockups are provided, only to find out that they want a site that looks a lot like one that already exists. Get this information on the table early and you’ll avoid headaches and wasted time.

11. What sites do you dislike?

On the flip side, allowing the client a chance to vent about sites they don’t like will provide you with a better idea of what to avoid. Many clients have a hard time describing what they like/dislike unless they see it. This gives them a chance to do that, as well as educate you in the process.

12. Are there specific site features you would like to see included?

This is another question to help you gently set the scope of the project and make sure that the expectations are discernibly explicit. Don’t let client assumptions turn your project into a money-losing proposition. Site features could be blogs, search features, social media integration, and so forth.

13. What do you find most annoying about using websites in general?

Give the client a chance to vent! It’s better to find out that they hate certain things now rather than after you’ve included them in your designs.

14. Are there any colors or features that should be avoided?

Defining colors that need to be avoided can save you from embarrassment later. Few things are as embarrassing as accidentally using a color palette from a major competitor. Never assume you know the answer to this one.

15. Will you need to update the content of the site on your own?

Geek speak: Do you need a content management system? Should we consider building the site on a platform like Drupal, WordPress or Joomla? This one could clearly impact the scope of the project.

16. When would you like this project to go live?

It seems obvious, but this is a biggie. Assuming you know how long it will take you to complete the project — and if you’re a professional designer, you better! — this will help you define the key deadlines, deliverables and benchmarks.

It also puts some responsibility back on the client. Who hasn’t been burned by a client who fails to deliver content and approvals in a timely manner, but still wants the launch date to remain the same?

Last, but not least, it will keep the client from calling you every day for status updates.

17. Will this site need user registration and be able to save data?

Geek speak: Is there any database work that will need to be done? Most projects with dynamic components and databases will require more work and discussion to define specific requirements and deliverables. This is good to know up front so that you don’t get hammered by massive feature creep.

This question also enables you to assess if you are able to do this project based on your skill set and whether or not you’ll need to contract someone who can.

18. Who is the single, primary point of contact for this project?

I am sure that some of you are smiling at this one. Nothing spells disaster like having more than one client making decisions about a site (i.e. designing by committee). It’s almost guaranteed that you’ll be given conflicting direction at some point when this is the situation. Therefore, it’s important to establish who has the final say for times when the project comes to a screeching halt because of decision paralysis.

19. Will your site need a way to contact you via a web form?

Simple stuff: but it’s so common that many clients assume it’s a freebie and doesn’t take any work at all. Make sure you define this type of stuff up front.

20. Is there anything else you would like to communicate to me?

“Let’s get it all on the table now.” Some clients are so full of ideas that they have trouble making decisions until they feel that you’ve heard all their ideas and suggestions. Rather than fighting that throughout the process, give them a chance to share their ideas up front.

What Do You Do If a Client Can’t Answer?

If you can’t get the client to provide any of these answers, I’d strongly suggest that you consider declining the project. If they can’t clearly explain their core business and the purpose of the site from their perspective, it doesn’t bode well for the project overall and you know that this will be a tough project to complete. You have to think about opportunity costs: By taking on a disaster-bound project, you can be affecting your chances in completing existing projects (as well as taking up new ones).

If you use this list on a project or have used similar lists of your own, we’d love to hear how it helped your projects succeed. We’d also like to hear some of the horror stories about failing to get these answers early on.

SixRevisons published a very nice article on the 17th March 2010 about writing articles for the web.

How to Write an Amazing Article by James Costa summarises a number of key features of a sucessful post and is an example of the points he raises.

‘Content is king’, ‘know your audience’ and writing with an engaging style are all common sense principles that are all too easy to forget.  Similarly, I’ve posted before about keeping things short, sweet and punchy and never to assume people will read your posts if you write essays rather than posts or articles.

An excellent resource, I encourage all to read this and enjoy the SixRevisons website.

In 1997, Jakob Neilson was writing on his UseIT.com site saying quite simply, that people don’t read webpages.  He has since said that people read email newsletters even less….

People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word. (Update: a newer study found that users read email newsletters even more abruptly than they read websites.) (Source: UseIt.com, October 1997 – 13 years ago)

I am a big fan of Jakob Neilson. He goes on with more imperical research…

On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely. (Source: UseIt.com, May 2008)

Facebook invites, Twitter rubbish, old marketing emails from the sportshop you bought a t-shirt from a year ago… our Inboxes are being bombarded with information and demands for attention.  Despite striving to have an empty Inbox it just never happens.  So when a newsletter pops up, my decision to read or click is usually made up very quickly.

 Yes, context plays an important role…  you can hope that email newsletters being sent to a subscribed list will be a ‘warm’ audience.  Blog posts should be punchy and engaging.  Web page content should be prioritised, specific and abbreviated.  (/cheer bullet points!)

Ideas for newsletters:

• Brand newsletters with your logo, slogan, and contact details  (checking compatibility when images are not displayed)
• Break up content with images
• Subtle use of colour (but do use colour)
• Lead with an engaging newsletter title
• Provide a synopsis at the top of the content
• Topics should be in the form of extracts – avoid lengthy subjects
• Consider using a 3rd party service to provide a template, manage email lists (sign ups and unsubscribes)
• ALWAYS remember the objective of a newsletter
  • The objective of a newsletter is to inform, capture attention and drive people to your website.  The newsletter should be part of your online offering enouraging people to click to the site. 
  • Therefore, avoid writing tombs of newsletter-specific content, only to have curious readers find a static site of different information
  • Why not focus efforts on site updates and blog posts and simply use the newsletter to summarise whats been posted in the last month… its the best use of your time.
  • Search engine ratings focus on site content not stand alone newsletters – putting the effort into the site makes for a more specific newsletter and boost the opportunities to people to find you

Just a few ideas.  Ensuring you avoid the pitfalls of having your newsletter go straight into Junk boxes, is another area of concern.  However, I’ll put some more information soon; I found a very good book over Christmas which will lead on from the rambling above!