What makes a successful web design strategy (Part 1)

KMP have been involved in website design strategy since the internet went commercial in the mid 90’s.

As a company we have designed and delivered many websites for budgets between £5.0k and £375.0k and I have been involved to a greater or lesser extent with most of them.

This is the first in a series of entries that aims to give a flavour of what we have learnt in this field over the last decade.

So where to begin; how about at the end. The end goal of a successful website design strategy should be a website that achieves it’s preset goals for the business. This may sound incredibly obvious but you would be surprised at how few organisations appreciate that they should set metrics for their website in relation to their business objectives therefore enabling the site to be judged as successful or not. Importantly this end goal should also be true no matter the scale or complexity of website itself. If your website is to sell widgets profitably, then how many should it sell and over what period of time and at what profit should this happen, for the website to be deemed a success…………….

Of course not all websites are transactional and this leads me to my next point. When undertaking a web site design strategy different areas of the business and their individual requirements need to be considered. Our experience covers many industry sectors public and private and we suggest four areas should just about cover all bases.

1. Revenue Generation – How is the site to sell product and make profit for your business?
2. Cost savings – What costs can the website save your business?
3. Brand building – Your website should add value to your brand. How can you achieve this?
4. Stakeholder relationship management – Your business has many stakeholders, from employees to customers and possibly media and investors. What is in your website for them and how can you make it valuable to them?
5. Your strategy should address how your website will deliver in the four areas above across departments, divisions or roles in your business.
6. Over the next few weeks I shall investigate these issues in more detail and demonstrate how an effective website design strategy will deliver your business a successful return on investment.