Is your website earning its keep?
Our opinion on the websites we develop and design is pretty
clear - they should always pay for themselves. Obviously this is
not always realised in immediate cash; some sites promote your
brand and therefore drive an indirect benefit. But all website
designs need to deliver your business a quantifiable benefit.
This is the top and bottom of it; it is vital that your site is
conceived with a clear, measurable purpose and that, from the
ground up, it's constructed and designed to deliver.
Where to start?
Many people start by thinking that they no longer like the look
of their site. When you come to Equator we begin by putting the
look and feel to one side. We begin by working with you to define
what you want the site (and any supporting marketing) to
achieve.
This simple exercise delivers a clear vision for your website.
Every decision on your website design is then based on whether it's
working toward or against that goal. This process focuses
everyone's effort; from the team designing and creating the site,
to the people marketing it, even to your team who are now empowered
to review and continually improve your site's performance against
the targets set for it.
Planning your website design & development
Another thing that's really important to us is that you should
never feel in the dark about the cost of your new website. We plan
the development carefully to give you absolute clarity on cost and
can arrange payment plans to suit your business.
How we know what will work for you
Getting these early stages right is fundamental to delivering a
successful project and giving you a site that really works. The
process we use to get this right involves the following
activities:
Reflecting your customer in your design
Your customer is the most important part of your web design
project. To design an effective website we must understand what
they are looking to achieve, what they like and what they
don't.
Understanding your business
Once we've developed an understanding of your customer we need
to develop an understanding about what your business wants from its
customers and what it wants from the new website.
Understanding your competitors
Your customers are likely to experience a competitive
marketplace and many of their expectations of you are set by your
competitors. We need to understand these benchmarks to make sure
your site is best of breed.
User journeys and site structure
Putting this information together we can build a picture of the
journeys that your customers will be taking through the site. Each
part of the journey corresponds to a step in their engagement with
your brand. By understanding this, we can develop the right
structure, content and features to help customers understand, and
ultimately buy, your company's products and services.
If we build it they will come
So having carefully planned, we need to build. At Equator you
have a team that involves all online channels at your disposal. Our
studio uses an Agile project management process that means experts
from each area are involved throughout a project's lifespan to
ensure that the web design, look, feel, interface and back-end
development are all as effective as they can be. This includes
designing-in search engine effectiveness at every stage; double-A
accessibility standards for every site and adhering to the
development of web-standards compliant code (which means it will
work in lots of different browsers, will be stable and
future-proof).
Get in touch or just keep reading
Of course how you spend the next few minutes of your life is up
to you, but it goes without saying that if you fancy giving us a
call to talk about how we might improve your website, we'd love to
hear from you.
Alternatively, you might want to read a little more about things
we do and think. There is lots here.
If you have or want to create a transactional site, then take a
look at this.
If your site is to promote a specific product or brand, then
this may be of interest.