Website Resolutions

Now that 2012 is well underway, I imagine some of your personal New Year’s resolutions to tame the bulge, fit in fitness, or spend less money have taken a substantial hit. A fact of life is that some resolutions are much easier to commit to than actually undertake.

Is a site redesign among your company’s New Year’s resolutions? Like so many other resolutions, identifying the much-needed overhaul to your site is easier to do than figuring out how to implement. Many companies begin with the Request for Proposal (RFP) process. From our experience, a well-crafted RFP helps you start strong and stay on course.

iMarc’s president Nils Menten shared his outline of How To Develop an Effective Web Development RFP in a blog post from 2009, and his guidance still applies today. I encourage you to read the full blog post here. Recommendations include the need to:

• Define the goals of your project;
• Identify the target audiences;
• Define brand guidelines;
• Explore technical details;
• Ask for references.

In this post, I offer some additional considerations for Nils’ list that address the big changes we’ve seen in the digital marketing landscape in just a few short years:

Define Mobile Strategy

A site redesign is the perfect opportunity to explore your company’s mobile presence. Worldwide sales of mobile devices is exponentially increasing, so now is the time to seriously consider how to position your new site on mobile platforms. As part of every website we build, iMarc develops the site to be accessible from a mobile device, but we always love the opportunity to take it one step further and use responsive design techniques to optimize the site’s style and behavior for handheld devices or create a stand-alone site purely for mobile use.

Discuss Content Sharing

Companies across all sectors have embraced social media as a tool to get their messages out – and integrate social media with their websites to facilitate content sharing. If you haven’t done so already, use the RFP process to explore investing in social media. Think about what features you would like to see incorporated on your new site – such as a Facebook “Like” button to allow users to easily share content on their Facebook profiles.

Explore Video

In 2009, Nils addressed the need to discuss photography, illustrations, and graphics in your RFP. Fast-forward to present day, and it’s now crucial to include video in the same breath. Video is becoming a prevalent source of information and a key component of the purchasing decision. According to a recent study of today’s senior business executives by Forbes Insights, 83% are watching more online video today than they were a year earlier.

Whatever your approach, don’t let the resolution to redesign your site be derailed. It’s vital to ensure that your website and related web applications continue to meet your needs in the years to come.