Defining your web presence was once very simple. Publish a homepage with a few pieces of information and (if you were really fancy) an image or two. These days, the breadth of what can be accomplished on the web is far greater. With features like e-commerce functionality, social media, mobile marketing and content-management systems, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the wealth of possibilities.
What’s the function of your website?
The important thing to remember is that you decided to use the web to achieve a set of goals. Understanding these goals is key to mapping out the shape your project will take, and almost invariably, these goals will involve people — your users. It follows that a good first question to ask yourself is, “How do I envision people interacting with my web presence?”
Do you need a CMS or E-commerce platform?
For example, you might see people coming to your site to make a purchase. Does that mean you should set up a full-blown e-commerce platform? Not necessarily. Maybe your company only sells a single item, and most of your web presence is devoted to explaining its purpose and laying out the available options. In this case, the content is more important than the ability to categorize and search for products, so a content-management system (CMS) might be a more appropriate direction to pursue.
Is your website just for employees?
Your users might even be purely internal to your organization. Employees might log onto your website to generate reports for stakeholders to review. Because you’re not looking to be able to create and structure pages of information for a wide audience, you wouldn’t be concerned with the functionality a CMS would facilitate, like RSS feeds, search-engine optimization and lists of articles. Instead, a custom programming solution could provide the best level of detail and fine-tuned workflow for your website.
Have you identified your goals?
Of course, you’re not tied down to a single user story when thinking about your goals on the web; the important thing is to identify and refine them as much as possible. You might find that some of your goals are secondary to others, and they may represent different phases of your project or different projects altogether. By communicating these user stories and goals with your development team, you can make sure they’re thinking ahead when choosing the technologies that go into creating your solution.
Do you know your users?
Ultimately, your users determine the success of your website, so keeping them at the forefront of the planning process is essential. Knowing how you intend for your users to interact with your website is also vital for your developers as they select the tools to work with in bringing your vision to life.
Ready to build a custom website? Give us a call today at 515-334-9544 or send us a message to get started on your custom website development and revitalize your web presence.
