Most website projects don’t stall in design. They stall waiting on people, content, and decisions. Our website design process covers what happens on our side. This post covers your side of the table — what to have in place before we start, so the project keeps moving and the site keeps working after launch.
build a great team
A team that stays engaged from kickoff to launch is one of the best predictors of a smooth project. Get the right people in the room at the first meeting — not after decisions are made. If someone on your staff will manage the site after it goes live, bring them in from day one. Their job gets easier, and so does ours.
Small teams work best. We recommend three to five people, each representing a different part of your organization — a manager to coordinate staff, someone with a marketing or outreach focus, and someone on the technical side. Meet weekly or every other week. Often enough to catch problems early. Spaced enough that everyone has something new to report.
A team that stays engaged from kickoff to launch is one of the best predictors of a smooth project.
treat it as a chance to sharpen your brand
A new website raises big questions. Who is your audience? What do you want them to do? What do you offer, and how do you talk about it? Then the details — logo use, color, photography.
If you have a strong brand, keep the website in line with it. If you don’t, the website can act as a branding project in miniature. Either way, it helps to have answers ready before design starts.
be realistic about content
Content is where most projects slow down. Say you’ve planned a thirty-page site and decided to write it yourselves to save money. That’s a lot of writing. Good content takes real time and energy, and a content delay can push launch back by months.
A few ways to keep it manageable:
- Start small. Launch a focused site and add pages as you go. A smaller site is easier to launch, easier to maintain, and easier to grow.
- Use what you have. Build your sitemap around content you already have — reports, brochures, program descriptions.
- Hire it out. If writing is the bottleneck, bring in a copywriter or content strategist to keep things moving.
Search engines favor pages that are useful and current, so stale content costs you twice.
keep your content current
Launch day isn’t the finish line. Your organization will change — new programs, new services, new people — and your site needs to keep up. Search engines favor pages that are useful and current, so stale content costs you twice.
Budget time and money for ongoing work like:
- regular blog posts or news updates
- refining pages based on how visitors use them (for example, a landing page that isn’t getting sign-ups)
- pages that support specific campaigns or social media pushes
plan for life after launch
A website isn’t a brochure. It’s software, and it needs care. Sort out who handles these three things before launch, not after something breaks.
Updates. A typical WordPress site runs on a dozen or more plugins and a theme, and they all get updated regularly. You need a safe, controlled way to apply those updates. Some organizations handle this in-house. We also offer support plans that cover maintenance and ongoing changes.
Backups. One of the first things we set up on a new site is automatic backups — two a day, with three weeks of history. If the site is hacked, or someone deletes a page while learning WordPress, you can step back to an earlier version.
Security. A few simple habits protect your site and the people who use it:
- Use strong, unique passwords stored in a password manager, and turn on two-factor authentication for logins.
- Give people only the access they need — authors don’t need administrator accounts.
- Remove old user accounts when staff or volunteers move on.
install analytics and check it
Analytics shows what people do on your site — where they go, where they don’t, and how they found you. One of the most common surprises: a page buried three clicks deep turns out to be the one visitors want most.
Install analytics before launch. Check it weekly at first, then at least monthly once things settle. Keep what’s working. Fix what isn’t.
questions?
If you’re getting ready for a website project and want to talk it through, drop us a line.
