A new website? From strategy to development

Owning a website remains an essential element of your company’s digital strategy today.

Whether it’s a “showcase” site that simply presents the company and its activities, or an eCommerce site for online sales, there are many steps involved, and the commitment of various stakeholders is essential to ensure the success of this tool.

In this article, we will attempt to guide you through the various stages of creating a website, from strategic planning to the launch of the site.

Defining Needs

During our meeting, you can express your needs to our agency through a comprehensive briefing to steer the site construction in the right direction.

Tell us about your company, its structure, and its values. Talk about your competitors, your customers, and their needs. Show us designs or list the structures of websites that you like.

If you already have a website, analyze the current results (for example, the most visited pages) to communicate what works well or what you definitely want to change.

Don’t forget to inform us about the project’s deadline and budget, which will help us establish a timeline as soon as the offer is validated.

All these elements can be communicated in a detailed specification document. Although it might be a bit tedious to write, it is very important at this stage of the project. It ensures that no detail is left to chance.

It can include many things:

• Your graphic charter, if you have one
• Any technical constraints
• Details of the various features envisioned or to be carried over from your current site
• The structure of the different pages, if already established fully or partially
• All the imagined behaviors (button actions, link behaviors, scroll actions, etc.)

This specification document comprehensively outlines all functionalities and avoids misunderstandings or back-and-forths due to unmet expectations.

If you’re not comfortable drafting this document, our team can certainly help you outline all the points mentioned above.

Reflection and Analysis

Following the needs expressed in the first stage, we can translate or refine them into features that will make up your site.

You will then confirm that this composition meets your expectations and needs. Thus, the offer, including the different tasks, timeline, and budget, can be developed and submitted for your approval.

Site Structure

After the strategy and analysis phases comes the creation of the site’s structure.

Using wireframes (bare structure without the design layer), we will propose a site layout with different pages, the elements that make up these pages, and the interconnections between them.

Content Delivery

The ball is now in your court. Whether you write the content internally or outsource it, it’s time to provide the content corresponding to the approved site structure.

It’s always beneficial to consider this content as strong and relevant to your activity and objectives to optimize your site’s natural SEO.

In practice, you might not have the final content ready for one reason or another. In this case, placeholder text (the famous Lorem Ipsum) will fill the content in the designs.

Ideally, providing content before the design phase is best so that the design can be developed around the text, rather than adapting your text to the imagined design space.

Creating Mockups

The site structure is validated, and your content is written? Great! It’s now time to add the design layer to your project.

The design should align with your company’s vision and image and resonate with your audience.

After an initial proposal by the agency, a collaborative tool like MarvelApp or Invision will allow us to exchange feedback until we reach a final version.

Site Development

Once the designs are approved, they are handed over to the development team. The designs are accompanied by the specification document that supports non-visible functionalities on the designs.

Our Backend and Frontend developers will work together to ensure a functional site that matches the approved designs.

It’s a true teamwork of branches, lines of code, debugging, testing, and validation.

Testing and Client Validation

Once the site development is complete, it is first tested internally by the team on different browsers and devices (commonly known as Cross Browser testing).

The test site’s URL is then provided to you to verify in conditions similar to the future production site that it aligns with the specifications and approved designs.

You can then give us feedback on our great work and any discrepancies you may have found during your testing.

Client Feedback Integration

The received feedback allows us to fix any raised bugs or last-minute requests.

This stage may involve one or more back-and-forths with you until the entire site is fully validated.

Simultaneously, assuming the received feedback doesn’t require new developments outside the specification, this is also when back-office access is given to you so you can make small content changes or translate the site into another language as previously defined.

Site Production Launch

Once everything is validated on the test site, we can move on to the much-anticipated production launch.

This step roughly involves duplicating the test site through some technical manipulations in the production environment. The website is then available to the public.

Congratulations!

Maintenance and Optimization

Is it over? Not really…

It’s now up to you to maintain your new communication tool!

Feed it with content, add or modify texts if needed. Analyze the data via your analytics tool to ensure the previously set objectives are being met.

Your site will be in constant evolution. You might need new pages, adjust existing ones, or develop new functionalities.

And we will always be there to support you.

Have a project? Let’s discuss it over a coffee!