How to plan a website development

Do you want to have your own website or online store created by professionals? This is a great step to attract new customers and impress existing ones. However, a web developer is not psychic, and in order to meet all your expectations, you will have to tell him your idea. A quality assignment is half the battle. The actual creation is already a piece of cake for experts.

Imagine yourself going to a painter to create a painting for your living room. You probably won't just tell him "I want a painting for my living room". Rather, you will explain to him what the room looks like, what should be in the painting, what colors the walls of the room are, etc. If you don't do that, you'll get a generic painting that lots of other people have, and it won't even fit the room. This is similar with web design. Moreover, here it's not just about your personal aesthetic feeling, but about the customers' impression. So what do you need to tell the designer when ordering your own website?

The purpose of the website

“We want a nice website”, “I don’t need anything demanding, but it should be impressive” or “make it profitable” – not like this. Right from the start it is needed to set your primary goal of your own website.  Of course, the website can (and probably will) fulfil more features at the same time. Anyways, it is good to have a springboard at the beginning. 

It is much easier to persuade a customer to make one act than five. Therefore, try to set one main (not the only one) purpose of your website. Just ask yourself and your colleagues, why you need the website and what are your expectations about it. These can be for example:

• Increase the number of orders.
• Improving awareness of your brand and products.
• Reaching new customers through web search engines.
• Strengthening relationships with existing clients.
• Reducing the number of direct enquiries from customers.

The agency that develops your website will immediately have a better idea of what the home page should accomplish and where it should direct the visitor (to make a purchase, register an account, register a brand, etc.).

The main advantages of your own products

Are you selling clothing made from eco-friendly materials? Do your products last provenly longer that the ones by your concurrence? Is the software you are offering intuitively manageable even for technology deniers? Are you a creative agency which can easily create a top website, add descriptions which are trendy, and make it publicly popular? Spread the world as soon as possible!

You're the one who knows your products best. List all the benefits that make you unique. Try to do some light brainstorming with your team and come up with the most original (not necessarily the most important) advantages of your brand and your products. An experienced marketing agency can help you with a catchy tagline and imaginative descriptions, but you should first describe your products in the best possible way.

Site design and structure

Wait, there are graphic designers and developers for web design, right? Yeah, precisely. Professionals can help you with the layout of the site, the arrangement of the elements, optimization and all other specific tasks. But in order to keep the authenticity or brand mission on the page and everything else you want your customers to see, you need to be clear about your web design vision as well.

Start with colors, for example. Do you want the site's color scheme to reflect your logo, or would you like something different? Next, try to decide if you prefer one long page divided into multiple sections, or if you'd prefer a site with a main page and a few other subpages. You can proceed with a basic design of a so-called site map, i.e. an overview of the basic structure of the site and the subpages that should be on the site. In the case of a creative agency, it might look something like this:

Home page

• Home
  • Here should be briefly listed all the services which we offer and a contact, alternatively some references.
• Services
  • Website development
    • Description of the process of website pages development, list of tools we use, and the advantages mentioned above.
  • Customized e-shop
    • Here we want to show the customers that we can also create an e-shop, that we use PrestaShop and that we have a certain specialist for a certain field.
  • Online marketing and social media
    • A concise explanation of SEO, PPC and social media marketing – in short, description of the agency’s focus.
  • Creative studio
    • Yea, and we do all the graphics ourselves, and we like to bring modern design to others.
• About us
  • Our attitude
    • Here we write that we have been in business for 19 years, we have 400 satisfied clients and we proudly stand behind every project.
  • Career
    • We are currently looking for an HTML coder, SEO + PPC specialist and project manager, so it would be nice to mention it there.
• References
  • See the company name
• Blog
  • We like to educate and entertain our customers, so this is where our articles will be.
• Contact
  • Our e-mail, telephone number, address + interactive form for an order or any questions.

Try to get inspired and create a similar proposal related to your company's focus. It shouldn't be anything complicated, but visitors should find what they are looking for right away. You can even add a short paragraph to each section about what you would like to convey to your visitors on this or that page. Again, experts will help you with the final design and practical tips. But they will be able to put themselves in your shoes much more accurately.

Features on the website

Nowadays, websites can be equipped with all sorts of interactive features that can make life much easier for you (the company) and your visitors - from various forms to the ability to register or sign up for a newsletter to 3D product models, videos or price or instalment calculators.

Do you know of a particular feature that you would like to have on your website? Great, write it down in your plan. Have you seen an interesting feature on another site that caught your eye? Feel free to make a note of it and get inspired. It's also a good idea to determine as soon as possible whether or not you'll need to update the site yourself regularly (add new photos, edit information, or change the look and feel partially).

Target group

Just a quick word on this. Choosing the right target group, even if it seems like a trivial activity, should be up to a marketing agency that is able to analyse your customers with the greatest possible accuracy. But if you have been in the industry for a while, you probably have an idea of the people or companies that buy from you. This can be valuable information when submitting a website submission.

Conclusion

We hope that you now know how to form a good proposal for your new website, and maybe you've even formed a clearer picture of your website thanks to our advice. Remember, the more specific you are when you are submitting plans for your website, the more accurate the price estimate you will get, before developing a more accurate quote. So, try to go through our guide step by step and really think about each point. And if you think of anything else, make a note of it.

Everything else can be worked out in a personal meeting. We'll be happy to advise you on anything and take your idea through to the end, so that we can embark on exactly the kind of project that is sure to not only meet, but exceed your expectations. However, the more prepared you come, the more time you will save yourself. It will make the implementation of your new website easier and faster.