The specifications are a contract of engagement between the agency or the person in charge of creating a website and the client. Once this agreement is signed by both parties, it becomes a benchmark for development. Anything that is not written in the specifications will therefore not be developed unless we modify this contract, which will surely have financial and temporal repercussions. The main challenges of a website is to juggle acquisition and conversion .
Let’s analyze together the steps to follow for a website creation and / or redesign.
I- THE PRELIMINARY STEPS TO THE CREATION OF A WEBSITE
First of all, it is essential to discuss the type of website you want. Is it an e-commerce site? A showcase site? A mobile first site? Each type of professional website is structured in a different way and must respect certain universal codes in order to be as intuitive as possible. The conversion funnel is different depending on the type of site. For example, an e-commerce will aim to bring to the act of purchase. A showcase site on the contrary will simply seek to bring in contact with a prospect.
You may already be familiar with the AIDA method , which indicates the buying process. Well for a website it’s pretty much the same regarding the conversion funnel:
Identify the consumer’s need
Argue about the products on sale
Reassure the user “satisfied or reimbursed”, “made in France”, “we are 1st on the market”, etc …
Convert the user according to his desire and your conversion goals.
To be able to convert effectively, you can imagine that you need to think about the very foundation of your website in order to suit the users as much as possible. Here is the VPTCS model , it’s free:
Visibility: Ability to be found by a user. In this case, the content writing must be adapted to SEO and thus be able to be in the first search results on Google.
Perception: Ease of use of the site (UX design / ergonomics / navigation).
Technical: A functional site, without apparent bugs and with a short loading time is often instinctively favored by users.
Content: Work on inbound marketing to attract your prospects with quality content.
Services: Through your social networks, email or telephone presence, make appointments available to your users in order to easily answer their questions and maintain a user relationship after their visit to your website.
Here is a list that informs you of 226 indicators to remember to offer a quality website.
II- KNOW YOUR PERSONAS AND ADAPT TO THEM
Once after you have reflected on your intention by creating your website, now is the time to think about your future customers. By basing yourself on market research, it is possible for you to have a more precise idea of your personas and to interpret what they are looking for. Collect a maximum of easily findable information, such as their age, sex, location, lifestyle, etc. and model the whole in order to prioritize your lead.
Refine your personas with their Google searches. The Majestic SEO tool will give you a lot of information on the quality of inbound links, directly related to the trust flow of your page. Added to this, it is important to have a little idea of the searches of Internet users and their monthly volume on each keyword. There are several online tools that allow you to have this information, such as Yooda’s insight for example. It is from this data that you will be able to optimize your content and best organize your natural referencing.
III- THE CONSTRAINTS TO BE SET UP BEFORE THE CREATION OF A WEBSITE
The constraints applied to the specifications are numerous.
First of all, there are the customer constraints. Sometimes the customer’s desires are not feasible or rather there is a need for time to achieve them or the strategy thought is not ideal. In any case, everything must be taken care of as soon as the specifications are drafted. Moreover, a communication agency must warn you when you are advancing towards slippery ground.
Then we come to the budgetary and human constraints. Each additional option has an additional cost. A site with 4 web pages will not require the same work as a 49 page e-commerce site. Likewise, creating a site without SEO optimized content will take less time to complete and therefore less expensive. However, wanting to take care of SEO writing without having knowledge is not a good idea either. It’s up to you to identify your skills, your maximum budget and your objectives. Keep in mind that a website is not an expenditure of money, it is an investment that will be a source of income for you in the long term.
The graphic constraints come into play during the layout of a graphic charter. Your charter must be the bearer of your brand image, must not in any way change along the way and must above all be thought out and considered beforehand. Each color causes an emotion. Orange is dynamism, green often relates to ecology, and blue is the color of confidence. Through colors, you will be able to convey your message and the personality of your brand through your choice of color.
This is accompanied by the constraints of the company’s IT department, SEO constraints and those of the existing. For a website redesign, the content is generally already written but it needs to be optimized.
