Welcome

This is the a temporary demonstration website created for Village Tree Service. This is used to share ideas and resources in the early stages of the redesign of the website. During later phases, a separate test site will be used to build and test a prototype, and eventually it will be hosted on a live production site.

Unlike print materials, creating a new website is not a ‘one and done’ process. For clients with limited experience I use a popular free content management system called WordPress, that simplifies the process of adding or updating content.

We start by creating pages, which are more permanent forms of content and help customers navigate your site. Then we create a schedule to post new information on a regular basis, ensuring search engines like google see the site as worth recommending.

There are four phases we will go through when redesigning an existing site; discovery, design, development and delivery.

1. Discovery

I have created posts for summating our meetings

This should take 2 or 3 meetings, to allow me to review your current situation and create strategies from your input and feedback. I will have some ideas and expertise to share, but it’s important I understand what goals you have for your business, to explore ways your website can help you achieve those goals more efficiently, and provide convenience for your customers.

Audit

For a simple website redesign like this, we’ll audit your existing website as a starting point for a plan. We will seek to answer these questions;

• What do you want to STOP doing?
• What do you want to START doing?
• What do you want to CONTINUE doing?

We’ll look at the current tools and activities you use to acquire new customers and manage relationships with existing customers, and assess how the website will complement (or replace?) these tools.

We’ll look at the skills, time and other resources required to publish your site. We’ll prioritize the ones that make the most of your business’ competitive strengths, with the minimum of extra effort, so you can continue providing the most valuable services for your customers.

Customer Archetype(s)

We’ll create one or more Customer Archetypes – a detailed, vivid description of the kind of customer you would like to target with your communications. This archetype(s) will become our ‘true north’ for all communications, so we reinforce your brand consistently. During later stages we will ‘test-drive’ the new site by watching a real person – who closely matches your archetype – navigate your pages. We’ll measure how successfully they find what they need, to ensure nothing gets in the way of converting or retaining your customers.

‘SWOT’ Analysis

One result of the discovery phase will be a document know as a Situation Analysis, identifying the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats for your business. This is critical to ensure your website works with your business goals and current market conditions, and helps you to decide what to ‘stop, start and continue’. It should also help you to plan business strategies beyond your website.

Strategies should help maximize your strengths and opportunities and improve or minimize weaknesses and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are things that you can more easily control, opportunities and threats are the external environment you work within. For example, competitors are an external threat that you can’t control, while the specific services you provide should be a strength. Opportunities might include new technologies or media to gather new customers – or remove obstacles to them hiring you. A weakness might be the frequency with which you update your site.

We will use the Customer Archetype to make sure our strategy meets BOTH your business goals and your customer’s needs, so we can design a website to works for all – and avoid wasting time on activities that don’t.

Skills Assessment

If you decide that you want to maintain the website yourself we’ll create a simple Training Needs Analysis, and estimate what level of support you will need to maintain it whilst doing your ‘real job’. This may include using staff or family members to help whilst performing their regular duties.

Note: Any way that you can integrate updating your website and other communications within your regular activities will ensure your site’s relevance and success in driving results at the right time. Neglecting this will guarantee your website will NOT appear towards the top of the list when customers search for business like yours.

Scope

We will use the information gathered during this phase to agree to the scope of the redesign before proceeding, to ensure we are able to stick to budget and release date commitments.

2. Design

This phase should take between 4 – 6 meetings, with updates/comments posted on this temporary site.

• Visual Design & Branding
• ‘Usability’ – content, tone, structure & navigation
• Search Engine Optimization – paid vs organic search
• Editorial calendar – Scheduling updates and cross posting to social media
• Email campaign schedule
• Data Security – gathering customer data, spam, privacy, site reliability
• Role responsibilities

3. Development

• Choosing a host
• Creating a Test Site
• Purchase and installing of software to expand WordPress functions
• Gathering and editing media
• Writing copy for pages
• Email Accounts
• Setting up Analytics

4. Delivery

• Training content creators
• Usability testing
• Domain changeover
• Launch