Building a website should be a thoughtful and creative process. A successful website combines your own creative vision with a successful implementation that suits your audience. Below is an ever growing list of questions that hopefully provides some food for thought.
- What is your company’s objective or mission statement?
- How would you describe your company’s culture, values and goals?
- Consider a one-word description or uniqueness about your company.
- What is the most common misconception about your company?
- What problems do your prospects have that your business solves?
- What is it about you and your background that sets you apart for a special (niche) group of potential customers?
- How much time will you be able to spend online, responding to inquiries that come in via your website?
- Do you have a slogan or tagline that clearly describes what you offer in terms of benefits or features?
- Have you researched your competitors websites?
- How do you envision this project supporting your company’s missions and objectives?
- What materials / information do you or would you like to provide to the public, clients and prospective clients via your website?
- What types of phone calls, emails, and communications do you receive that you feel could be fielded or answered by the website?
- In your opinion, what are the key reasons users visit your site? When users visit your website, what are they actually trying to do?
- If you were using a search engine, what words or phrases would you use to find your site? Which of these words or phrases is most important? Second? Third?
- What do you NOT want on your site in terms of text, content, etc.?
- What personalities do you want to convey through your site? Progressive, Traditional, Classy, Professional, Exciting etc.
- Are there any important words that you want people to associate with your company image/brand?
- Will you need the capability to create customer accounts with Client Log-in / Member Areas?
- Will you have content that is only available to your members?
- Do you need a Contact Us Form?
- Do you need a Interactive Map & Directions?
- Do you want to provide areas for Information exchange? (comments discussion forums, chat rooms or community areas)
- Do you need a FAQs section?
- Do you need a Guest Book?
- Do you need a Current News section?
- Do you need a Site Specific Search?
- Do you need a Google Search?
- Do you need a Press Releases section?
- Do you want to have Downloadable Brochures?
- Do you need Printable PDFs or other materials?
- Do you need a Site Map?
- Do you need a site portfolio or image gallery?
- Do you need media with text (Videos, Audio, Images)?
- Do you need a Useful Links Section?
- Do you need a Newsletter/E-mail List Sign-up?
- Do you want to connect to a mass emailing service that you have set up?
- Do you need functionality for Survey/Polls?
- Do you need Business Forms?
- Do you need a section for Employment Offerings?
- Do you need Multilingual / translatable capability?
- Do you need Mobile Device Optimization / Responsive site?
- Do you want your mobile site to have considerably different and optimized content than your full desktop site?
- Do you need Searchable Databases/Knowledgebase?
- Do you need a Testimonials section?
- Do you need RSS Aggregate Feeds? Will they be customized feeds and will there be multiple feeds
- Do you need a calendar of events? Should users be able to subscribe to your calendar?
- Do you need a Shopping Cart / Ability to accept monies?
- Do you want custom 404 and other error pages?
- Will you need multiple navigation areas? Footer menus, submenus?
- Do you want to have Calls to Action on your website?
- Do you want your site to have any special effects? Parallax, Flash, etc?
- Do you like the idea of infinite scrolling or do you want a page-by-page layout?
- Do you want to use special fonts on your site…something other than Arial, Helvetica, Geneva etc.?
- Do you need cookies on your site.
- Do you need social media to accompany your website?
- Do you want your social media to be integrated with your site automatically? I.e. A new article on your website automatically shows in your social network feed.
- Do you need a specialized Terms of Service or Legal Disclaimer for your site?
- Will your site host any sensitive content such as medical / HIPPA data? Have you looked into the legal requirements for maintaining this type of data?
- Does your site have any “minimum age to view” requirements?
- Do you need to adhere to any specific regulatory or security requirements?
- Will you want to include paid or click-thru advertising on your site?
- How important are page load speeds?
- How important is it that your website adheres to the strictest XHTML, HTML web standards?
- How much are your willing to spend on maintaining your site?
- Who will maintain the code on your website?
- How often do you want to change the content on your site or the look of your site?
- Who will be working on your site and adding new content?
- Will you need different administrator user roles to limit the areas of your site that employees have access to change?
- How web savvy are you? Will you need training on updating your website?
- Do you need written How Tos to help you and/or your employees to maintain and update your website?
- Do you want to use an open source content management system, paid development platform or completely custom solution?
- What is your threshold for dealing with bugs and issues that are part of the free Content Management System world (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla etc)
- Do you want landing pages or special pages directed toward specific campaigns?
- Do you need to support older browser and operating systems?
- What visual and written elements from existing materials must be utilized on the website? Logo, Key Phrases, Colors, Fonts etc.
- What are your color scheme preferences? Logo colors, Neutrals, Bright colors etc.
- Color schemes convey meaning? Do you want to portray a certain feeling a visitor gets from your website?
- Who will be your typical site visitors or target audience? Businesses, individuals etc.
- What demographics is your site targeted at? Age, Gender, Interests, Income Levels, Educational Level, Political Affiliation etc.
- What psychographics is your site targeting? Attitudes, Values, Lifestyles, Opinions etc.
- What geographic is your site targeting? – physical/geographic location, primary language, ethnicity, culture, etc.
- How important is site accessibility for users that are impaired? Site impaired, hearing impaired etc?
- Do you need to support any impairment devices such as screen readers?
- Do you need to design for device independence? i.e. Mouse vs. keyboard vs. voice operable?
- How important is SEO?
- Do you want to purchase advertising such as Google Ad Words?
- Will users primarily find your site via search engines or is your site a tool for customers who already know who you are?
- Will you be providing all text/images for this project, or will you require copywriting and photography services?
- Are there any company websites that are similar to what you are looking for in your website?
- Are there any websites you admire and why? Style, Colors, Layout, Organization, Content, Site “Stickiness”
- What are your biggest dislikes when you visit other websites:
- What aspects of your current website are useful?
- Do you feel your current site promotes a favorable user experience?
- What are your top three frustrations with your current website? Consider client feedback, personal experience, and coworkers
- How will you judge the success of a new website?
- What is most important to you in working with a web development company? Responsiveness, creativity, technical ability, easy to work with, trustworthy etc.
- Will you appoint key decision makers for your project?
- What is your expectation of the timeline for completing your website project?
- What is your budget for your website project?
- What is the # 1 key message every visitor should take away when visiting your site?
Suggestions welcome!
