Jon Samsel

After several requests, I have decided to publish my eight stage website planning process. If you are a web designer or developer tasked with building a new website, or if you are a web executive contemplating a redesign of your corporate site, think of this outline as a handy checklist for each stage in the web planning process–from discovery through optimization.

I have also included a PowerPoint version of the 8 stage website planning process here.

Stage 1: Discover
Purpose of site
Top 5 business goals
Top 5 user goals
Approximate page count
Style, tone & brand positioning
Top 5 unique features
Traffic sources
Onsite advertising
Calls to action / lead routing
Domain name / URL
How site complements current strategy
How site augments current strategy
Websites this site might emulate
Competitive sites
Timeline / launch date(s)
Definition of successful launch

Stage 2: Plan
Project team & roles
Financial overview
Marketing overview
Communications overview
Project management process
Key project phases
Content requirements
Assumptions & dependencies
Visitor personas & task paths
Major site features & functionality
Design, navigation & architecture
Publishing platform/CMS
Databases, integration & technologies
Tracking & reporting
Natural search & ADA requirements
Hosting & service level agreements

Stage 3: Build
Wireframes & design mock-ups
New content / rights clearance
API’s and RSS feeds
Prototype pages
Usability testing
Searchability testing
Source codes & phone #’s
Landing pages / transactive pages
Legal & compliance
Change control process
Quality control
Staging & user acceptance testing

Stage 4: Publish
Article creation / RSS feeds
Asset management
Publishing sign off process
Syndication
Publishing calendar
Subject matter experts / moderators
User generated content
Multimedia publishing
Publishing platform/CMS
Legal & compliance sign off

Stage 5: Maintain
Up-time requirements
System administration
Software/hardware upgrades
Hosting/security
Documentation
Capacity
Page load times
System performance tuning
Back-up/archiving

Stage 6: Market
Paid campaigns
Natural campaigns
Inbound link building
Landing page overflow
Inter/Intra site linking
Syndication of content
Campaign tracking & reporting
Integrated / stand alone
URL promotion

Stage 7: Measure
Analytic packages
Tagging, tracking & reporting
Cookies & logic
Campaign set up / mods
Natural vs. paid breakout
Tracking to goals
Social / delayed response
Banner performance
LP funnel performance
Site load time / up time

Stage 8: Optimize
Direct response testing
Multivariate testing
Landing page testing
Banner ad testing
Best practice sharing

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under Design, E-Business, Marketing, SEO, User Experience, Websites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.