“We should have a website!” is a common thought for small businesses and non-profits these days. Yes, probably you should, but before hiring a designer or ambitiously deciding to do one on your own, three key decisions need to made. These are essential to building a website that will achieve your goals, now and for months (if not years) to come.
1. What do you want a website to do?
This is key: define your expectations before you set the budget in stone or take any other steps to develop your site. This will affect many aspects of your website, including both development and maintenance costs.
Two basic types of websites exist: (a) an online brochure that nicely presents your information and materials to all who find you (or to your membership) and (b) dynamic sites that attract people to you website and to your products, services and ideas.
Is one better than another? Not really, although some website gurus will say otherwise. Perhaps all your organization needs is a convenient online source of information — a brochure, basically. For example, a local small business — a tour guide or handyman, say — may just want an information site. But this will not be enough for, say, a new non-profit hoping to grow or a research group that wants its ideas known.
If you are not sure what a website can do, then it makes sense to hire a consultant to help you think this through — it will save time and avoid disappointment later on.
2. How often will you make changes to the site?
In part, the frequency of change will be decided by your decision in #1. A dynamic site, perhaps incorporating a blog, will gain the most exposure. Search engines — the gods of the Internet — love change. The more you change materials on your site, the more prominent it will become in search results. If you are competing with other organizations for the same audience, or are selling online, this can be critical.
Making this decision now is important for two main reasons.
(1) It is basic to your planning about designing and building the site. If change will be frequent, the site should be designed specifically to accommodate change easily.
(2) How often new materials will be added to the site helps determines costs after the site is launched — either in staff time, or for outsourced services, or both.
3. How much can you realistically do in-house?
This question has two parts.
First, does anyone in your organization know website design/function well enough to oversee a website designer and developer? If not, find someone to help — a ‘translator’ — who can make sure that you and the website company understand one another. In the long run, it will save you both time and money by avoiding problems during development and by ensuring your website is tailored to your needs.
Second, who will be making changes on the site, once it’s launched? If #2 is done properly, then your website should be designed so that change is relatively easy and inexpensive. Routine changes to a website with an intuitive, simple ‘backend’ interface most likely can be handled by someone on staff, with training. In some cases, it can be cost-effective to outsource this, saving in-house staff time for other tasks.
Handling changes in house requires both (a) an in-house person who is comfortable with the tasks and (b) a website backend interface that is easy to use. Test before you buy — ask the website developers you are considering to allow you to try out the interface. Horror stories about overly complicated sites abound.
For ‘sticky spots’ and occasional problems, having an expert on tap is essential — a malfunctioning website harms your image.
The Mattison Group specializes in providing consulting in the planning, design, development and maintenance of small- to medium-sized websites. We develop and manage small websites in house.
