When asked to make a cheese sandwich you are almost always guaranteed to end up with, well, a cheese sandwich.
Civil engineers do not ask their clients to instruct them on the structural integrity requirements of the project but this is a very familiar scenario in IT. Specialists let the client prescribe parts of the solution instead of the requirement or objectives. In the hands of a half competent service provider this will provide you with your cheese sandwich, but you will most likely be missing out on a great meal.
One of the main reasons this happens so often is the fact that when presented with the requirement for the design or development of a website, it is made clear that the implementation need to follow sooner rather than later. This is even more so for the redesign and development of an existing website.
This is one of the most common pitfalls within the industry and is almost guaranteed to be a great way to spend the available budget with zero to little return. There are the physical components of the intended website that we need to understand and define but even more so, we need to understand:
- Your business and the related existing digital assets;
- How your target audience is searching for similar services; and
- What the competitive opportunities are.
How then do we ensure the greatest and on-going return on the time and money you invest in growing your business? We do this through an iterative process of measuring, optimising and improving.
We will guide you through the process of understanding exactly what is required for us to deliver a great website that performs and delivers on all defined key performance indicators but the process starts here .
Author: Willie Cloete,
Head of Web Development & Technical Solutions at BlueMagnet
