Apart from social media platforms, having a website is a necessary step in establishing an online presence. Most savvy business owners invest in a good website to increase their online visibility and ensure they acquire new customers. A website is an excellent initiative to start your marketing campaign and provide prospects with an insight into your business and campaign message.
Your website minimizes your advertising costs as it provides an alternative to showcase your brand. A website can give perpetual marketing if you implement the proper measures and cement your web presence. You can also integrate your website with your social media pages and create a streamlined analysis of your online performance.
As technology evolves, creating a website has never been easier. Some tools make it easy to set up and launch your site and work on your online marketing campaign. Before creating your website, it would be best to have a web development checklist to guide you through the phase.
The web development checklist allows you to integrate the complexities surrounding development. It includes picking the correct code and ensure your website sustains your goals. That said, here is a web development checklist to help you work on your project.
Identify Your Goals
You need to know the end goal of the web development process and discuss it with the developer. Explain to the web development firm your expectation from the site and what you intend to gain. The website may be for the sole purpose of marketing and drive your brand’s message across or part of your overall marketing strategy.
You may also look to open an e-commerce site and find customers for your products. It may also be a blog site to update your visitors about market changes and inform them about other aspects. Knowing what your website intends to fulfill will set off your project in the right trajectory.
As part of defining goals, you should look at what your competitors are doing. This way, you can discern what to do differently and have a unique website representing your brand value and philosophy. Your goal identification phase should involve your audience to know how best to present your site.
Your audience’s online behavior will help you focus on providing the best user experience. Thus, you can determine the best way to showcase your brand attributes and analyze your rivals.
Checklist 2022: Website Development Requirements
Project Preparation
After defining your goals, set up a meeting with the developer and discuss what you need. Provide the developer with your business details that entail your brand, products or services, target audience, and demographics. This way, the developer can learn more about your business and enlighten them on your industry niche’s trends, strengths, and weaknesses.
The developer should also provide a quotation of their expertise and design scope. The quotation should estimate other services involved in the development phase, such as content writing, photography, and videography.
The developer should present some domain options and ask you to choose the preferred nomenclature. If you have an inspiration for the web design features, make sure to share with the developers or ask for a proposal. After the meeting, check through the discussed features, give the developer the go-ahead, and set a timeline for the project.
Map Out the Site
Before diving straight into the development phase, it is imperative to set a foundation for the project. Come up with a sitemap with designers’ help and create a blueprint for your website’s visuals. The sitemap provides developers with an idea of the expected site structure and site information.
The sitemap provides the developer with a clear vision of the site’s architecture and determines the relationship between all the page elements. You can incorporate various tools to store the site’s design and page elements to check for any challenges with your blueprint.
Develop an Error-Handling Methodology
Various issues may arise, including bugs in your code, and may slow down your development process. You will need an effective strategy to identify and fix these bugs. Ensure you fix every bug to avoid having future issues with your website. These bugs may create significant vulnerabilities that may compromise your site’s security and user data.
Content Creation
Your site content should be contextually relevant to your business and your audience. Website content plays an integral role in SEO optimization efforts. Your content will also determine your customer engagement efforts and drive your page visitors to take specific actions on your site.
Your content should incorporate various keywords that make it easier for internet users to find your site on SERPs. You can use multiple tools to help you identify the best keywords to improve your page’s ranking on various search engines.
Focus on your visual elements to help you incorporate quality photos and videos. Ensure the page elements make it easy for visitors to scroll down through your blog for information.
When everything is said and done, it would be best to test your website. Testing your site helps to reveal and mitigate any issues before deployment. Launch your site and discern ways to improve your site as you go along.
