How To Build A Successful Business Website Without Wasting Time Or Money – Part 1 – Introduction

Considering building, or re-building, your business website, or possibly want to make yourself aware of what is involved? 

Based on experience gained since the mid 1990’s, we aim to shed some light on web design to aid your decision (be it build/re-build/not, outsource vs. in-house, remain with your current supplier, or highlight considerations as to why you may want to move, review potential web developers, how to measure, and how to decide).

The case for marketing, be it traditional marketing or digital marketing (of which websites form a part) or integrated marketing (incorporating some or all of both traditional and digital marketing elements), as well the components blue print that strategically may have brought you to the need for a website, are dealt with in the How Traditional & Digital Marketing Agency Skills Help Business Profit series available at our blog https://www.3gs.co.za/category/views/

So we are kicking-off from the perspective that all that has been done and considered and now you are looking at how to proceed with regards to your website, be it a

• website creator
• web developer
• content management system (CMS)
• web development agency
• digital marketing agency
• website content strategist
• web design strategist
• or any one of the myriad of other website related keywords or keyphrases that you may be thinking about.

Welcome to Part 1 in this website series – Introduction.

In order to ensure you get the most value possible for your website development, we need to look at some key concepts that need be taken into account in shaping your business website.

• Nature of Your Business and Industry Analysis
  • Understand your business model, target audience, your business’s products, services and unique value proposition.
• • Research your industry’s online trends, competitors, and user expectations to tailor your website accordingly.
• • Your website should align with your brand identity and convey your value proposition clearly.
  • This can help you position your website effectively.
• Market Dynamics
  • Analyse current and anticipated market trends, user behavior and preferences, and emerging technologies that might impact your website’s functionality and design, thus ensuring it remains relevant and competitive.
• Objectives
  • Define clear goals for your website, such as generating leads, enabling sales, providing information, building brand awareness, and/or servicing clients. Your website’s design and functionality should align with these objectives. 
  • What do you want visitors to your website to do once they are there, or as a result of having been there. 
• Areas of Application
  • Identify the various use cases, features and functionalities your website needs to achieve its objective.
  • This could include e-commerce, lead generation, customer support, content sharing, a blog, portfolio, booking system to name a few.
• Website Audit
  • Evaluate your current website’s (if applicable) performance, content, functionality, and user experience to ascertain what’s working, and what needs improvement.
  • Identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
  • Identify technical issues, content gaps, design and process shortcomings.
• Strategy
  • Develop a comprehensive strategic plan that outlines how your website will meet your business objectives.
  • This includes design, development, user experience, content creation, marketing strategies, and maintenance aspects of your website.
• Selecting a Development Partner
  • Choose a reliable web development agency or professional that understands your vision, has relevant experience across the breadth of strategy, design, implementation, maintenance and management, and can deliver the required functionalities within your budget and timeline as evidenced by their expertise, portfolio and references.
• Implementation
  • Execute the design and development process according to the chosen strategy.
  • Focus on user-friendly navigation, responsive design, and optimal performance across devices.
  • This involves creating wireframes, mock-ups, coding, testing, and ensuring responsive design for various devices.
  • This might involve content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, or custom solutions.
• Site Management
  • Determine how the website will be managed on an ongoing basis.
  • Establish a clear structure assigning roles for managing website updates, content updates, technical maintenance, security monitoring and ongoing improvements. 
  • Bridging both technical and non-technical, site management to a larger or lesser degree may be facilitated via a CMS.
• Site Maintenance
  • Regularly update your website’s software (core CMS), plugins, themes, and security features to prevent vulnerabilities and ensure smooth functioning.
  • This will fix bugs, improve performance and reduce risk to your business as well as to your users.
• Content Management
  • Develop a content creation plan and strategy incorporating creating, publishing and updating content to keep your website fresh and engaging for your audience.
  • High-quality, relevant and regularly updated content drives SEO (to attract users to your website) and user engagement (once on your website).
• Hosting
  • Choose a reliable hosting provider that offers the necessary resources scalability, security, and support for your website’s needs, and matches their offerings to your business requirements beyond the website itself – ultimately aiding in keeping your website running smoothly.
• Reporting
  • Implement web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, or one of the many other options, to track traffic sources, user behaviour, conversion rates, and other key metrics.
  • By regularly analysing this data, your business should refine its website’s performance through ongoing optimization efforts.
• SEO & SEM
  • SEO, Search Engine Optimization.
  • SEM, Search Engine Marketing.
  • SEO and SEM work in tandem, they are not the same thing.
  • Incorporate SEO techniques during the development process to improve your website’s visibility in search engine results.
  • Incorporate SEO techniques in the updating of content.
  • Utilize SEM strategies such as pay-per-click, as relevant, to attract and drive targeted traffic to your business website.

It is worth noting that this process isn’t linear, it often involves iterations and adjustments based on user feedback, changing market conditions and data analysis.

Building a successful website requires careful planning, regularly review and refining your strategy, continuous optimization, and adaptability to changes in the digital landscape, to ensure your website remains aligned with your business goals and the needs of your audience.

How does your business move forward from here?

• Q&A
  • Is the above in place for your business success, as provided for internally and/or via external implementation partners?
    • If not, what are the risks to your business? 
    • If so, whether partially or in totality, what opportunities are there to sustain your business? And grow your business ? 
  • Implementation partners are in place, but is there strategic direction?
    • If not, how will the component parts collectively pursue and deliver on what is required by your business?
    • If so, who owns and who manages the strategy? Where does the understanding sit?

We are honest and transparent as to why we have put out this article. Yes it should be an asset to the industry and customers of our industry, but we also need to do business for many of the same reasons you do. So here is our ask.

Seeking a web development company, a social media company, a digital marketing agency, a traditional marketing agency, an integrated agency or a service provider that can co-ordinate multiple suppliers (in-house and/or outsourced)? 

Why you should consider 3G’s Branding Consulting Digital and Marketing Head Outsource

• All founders have been in marketing, branding, business management and digital online communication since the mid 1990’s
• Principals daily hands-on involvement
• Qualifications include
  • BComm. Marketing
  • Design Diplomas
  • Program in eCommerce
  • BTech Multimedia
  • IT Specific Project Management (Levels 1 -3)
  • Technology Qualifications
• Clients have included amongst others:
  • B2B 
  • B2C
  • Multi-Nationals
  • JSE listed companies
  • Government agencies
  • National Lottery South Africa
  • Gautrain
  • Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMME)
  • One-man operations
  • Volunteer only operations

We As An Agency

• Are a specialist communication agency offering a complete consulting, design, implementation and management solution
• Have an experienced multi-faceted specialist team
• Leverage our organisational learnings to date
• Have substantial experience collaborating with third party vendors
• Have our proven processes and procedures
• Limit the risk of time, money, and client reputation
• Maximize synergies
• Leverage service and cost efficiencies
• Retain a high level of creativity, professionalism and quality outputs
• Have undertaken standalone projects as well as multifaceted projects that may or may not integrate to third party vendors offerings
• Have aided clients with operational improvements and increased productivity
• Are grateful to our clients, some of whom are still with as from the very beginning
• Have working relationships with of our clients, within the context of what 3G’s and MHO provides, going back to 2002.

We received the following accolade from yet another satisfied client and collaborator (Denny Vollet of Mainware Technologies on LinkedIn reproduced with permission) 

“Ricardo thank you for the work that you have done with our clients. Look forward to be working with you on new projects and clients.”

Access further testimonials

Well, that was Part 1. There will be more to follow. 

Access other series’ via our blog, as well as the balance of articles and posts access 3G’s other posts. Likewise you are welcome to reach out to us should you want to engage directly with us on this. 

And…….. Expect more from your communication

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