Paul CoffeyPrepared and presented by

What Makes A Successful Website?Planning for your next website project

March 2017

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Welcome to the session• It’s in support of our guide, “How to make your

next website a success”. You can download it at www.coastdigital.co.uk/website-success

• We’re going to highlight three sections of critical importance when thinking about your next website

• I’m joined by one of my colleagues Tom Pretty – Digital Consultant

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How to make your next website a success

The guide is for anyone that is starting or going through a website design project.

It focuses on the preparation you can do before you even engage an agency with themes such as:• Understanding the website’s purpose• Defining objectives and the measurements for success• Understanding your users and research opportunities• Learning lessons from your existing website

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Today’s sessionWe’re going to focus on three key themes in our guide:• Understanding your site’s purpose• Understanding your users and

audiences• What can be learnt from your

existing site

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The website’s purposeWhat do we mean?• An understanding of the website’s role and

how it fits into your overall business strategy• The place the website has in the wider

service offering• How goals and purposes can be prioritised

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Why clarity of purpose is important• We can use a clearly stated purpose as a guide throughout the project• Offers a chance to engage with stakeholder’s on their objectives (beginning

the process of getting their buy-in)

Discussion, covering:• What happens if we don’t have clarity?• How you can arrive at a site purpose?• How we resolve conflicts in purpose?

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Understanding our users/audienceWhat do we mean?• Understanding who is coming to the

website.• Insight into why people come to the

website• The motivations and goals of users• How users might be grouped by

motivation & behaviour

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Why understanding users is important:• Undertaking some research into audience and their needs/motivations

provides evidence to base website decisions.• Not all of the audience are the same, although they can be grouped• Understanding user needs will help us to tailor messages towards them

Discussion, covering• How we perform user research• Common ‘blends of research’ and how they compliment each other• What happens if we don’t do user research!

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Learning from the existing siteWhat do we mean?• Using tools to review the current usage

and website behaviour• Gaining detailed information from

recordings of individual users, heatmaps and survey tools

• Learning from previous website projects, what went well and level of support received.

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Why the existing website is important:• The current site can tell us a lot such as popular information and content. • It also gives evidence as to HOW people visit the website and on which devices, which

in turn give us clues as to how they are using the site. • It provides lessons on what has and hasn’t worked in the past.• It’s not just the website, recognising the enjoyment of and level of support throughout

the process is also an important factor in determining success.

Discussion, covering• The value of data reviews and how we do them• In our research presentation, what role does the data review play and how it helps• What happens if we don’t do this?

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Wrap up on our highlighted topics• Clarity of purpose – our guide as we

move through the project, our foundation

• Understanding our users/audience – addressing the real needs of our users

• Learning from our old site – what’s worked, what hasn’t and how do we move forward

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What did we leave out!Everything is important. Any one of the other topics could have been covered in this session but two worthy mentions are:• Content • Hosting and support

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What did we leave out! Content• Creating the content for the new site

• How to match old pages with new?• Making updates to existing content• Creating new content for new pages

• Content loading• What is the value of having real content during the design & build process• Who is loading the content into the new site? Either you or the agency can do

this, each has benefits and considerations to be taken into account• If you do it, you get your hands on the CMS at an early stage• If the agency does it, they can style content efficiently but you won’t be as familiar

with the CMS

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What did we leave out! Hosting and support• Often overlooked or seen as lifetime ownership costs• Hosting keeps your site alive! Investing time into the production of an asset

but not it’s hosting feels like a false economy• If you are prone to traffic spikes, from viral or mass marketing perhaps, then

you’ll need to be flexible with the solution. This can be expensive• The ongoing support you’ll need from time to time from your partner, is also an

important consideration• With so much going into the build of a website, 3rd party modules and general

site updates, having a relationship with your build partner after launch is vital to maintain a robust website.

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Well, that covers our talk

Questions start...

Those we can’t get to, we’ll address separately after the session

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Thank you