Tips for a Successful Web Project

No two businesses are the same, and thus no two projects are the same, either. However, with Westwerk’s detailed, proven web process, we’re able to help you hone in on what’s really important and ultimately set your company up for digital success. Below are some quick tips to consider when starting a website project, no matter your business or industry.

Know your audience. It’s important to have a thorough understanding of who you are trying to target with your website. Honing in on demographics like age ranges and gender as well as psychographic data like interests and values can help you get a more solid idea of how to target these groups. Additionally, determining other sites these groups visit can give you a sense of the type of content, messaging, calls to action and even design and functionality preferences that resonate with these groups. Once you have an understanding of who your audiences are, then you can position your website in a way that is more meaningful to this audience, and thus more effective.

• Not sure who your target audiences are? By conducting research, creating user surveys, conducting internal sales and client interviews, evaluating analytics and more, we can work with you to hone in on your specific user groups, then leverage that data to create an effective website.

Establish measurable goals. Be SMART with your goals – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. While not all goals can be measured (e.g., internal feedback from your team or a glowing review from a client), it is important to identify specific benchmarks that you want to measure your website’s success from.

• Tip: Page views and overall website traffic are a great place to start, but shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all when it comes to measuring (especially since there are many other elements at play when it comes to web traffic). Is your website used as a sales or lead generation tool? What does a conversion look like to you? Is there a way to establish micro-conversion goals so that you can track success along the way (e.g., when a new visitor submits a form or chats with a live person on your website)? In our discovery process, we’ll work with you to identify the right goals for your target audiences.

Review the competitive landscape. You need to know what your competitors are doing, not so that you can emulate them, but so that you can leapfrog over them. We understand that you don’t want to spend precious time and resources reinventing the wheel, but you also don’t want to get lost in the fray, either. Make sure you have a grasp on what your competitors are doing, saying and offering, and do it better!

• Easier said than done? We can help with that. It could be as simple as refining your design, finessing your messaging or implementing some innovative functionality.

Revisit your content. Your website is changing, so this is the perfect time for you to reevaluate your content along with it. Your target audiences, their expectations and interactions with your website have evolved over the years, and chances are, the type of content they are looking for has changed, too. It’s quite common to find areas within your website that either need to be expanded upon or consolidated. Start taking a critical eye to all of your content, so nothing gets overlooked.

• Tip: Now is the time to fine-tune your headlines, calls-to-action, imagery, illustrations and more. By identifying your target audiences and establishing goals for your site, you can start mapping out your website’s content in a way that can help achieve these goals and facilitate positive interactions with your users.

And one more important tip to consider: Don’t force a deadline. A new website can be a time-consuming task, especially if you need to obtain internal buy-in along the way. It’s important to have all of your ducks in a row before beginning the project, especially if you’re up against a tight timeline. If a timeline is driving the project more than the requirements are, then consider dividing the project into phases – launching a simpler version early on, and then iterating with new functionality, features, content and more in future phases.