When asking an agency to create a new website for you, it’s understandable to ask them about the cost. Indeed, at Webahead, we offer a range of packages that can give you a comprehensive, self-contained site. However, this package represents only the starting point, not the finishing line.
In web design, there’s no such thing as a finishing line; changing expectations require your site to be regularly readjusted to keep pace. Here’s how to contend with running a marathon that never ends.
What does your audience want?
Truthfully, you probably lack a concrete idea. In fact, this is the norm for businesses until at least months or even a year after they have launched their website.
This situation poses a major challenge when it comes to deciding what to place on a website in the first place. You could spend months pondering the subject – and, once you’ve chosen a web design package that can accommodate all of the required content, further months programming the site.
Even once the site is live, you could only learn later that you have mistakenly omitted certain details which ought to have been prioritised for inclusion. Learning what your site should be like is a lengthy process of trial and error, especially as sites left without updates can age quickly.
Here’s how iterative web design works
Rather than seeing a website as something into which you pour a lot of time and money and then largely leave alone, treat it as an ongoing project that needs regular refinements to stay relevant. You could enact such improvements during what have been called “sprints”.
These are defined time periods, each lasting anything from a week to three months, when your marketing staff will make tweaks to the site. These can include either making new content for it or repositioning existing pieces of content to enable them to reach their target audience more easily.
At every turn, your changes should be informed by how people are actually using the site. You probably already have huge amounts of such data at your fingertips – and, even if you don’t know where to find it, our web experts can enlighten you.
What changes should you especially consider making?
Naturally, we all need to start somewhere with our “sprints”, so let’s look at what you might do with the first one. You might assume that an “About” or “Staff” page would attract little attention, but it would be worth adding one with your first sprint after the website has first been made.
Hold off embarking on your next sprint until you have referred to the data to discern what parts of this new page people are viewing and for how long. Also, note which links on the page these visitors are clicking. With these findings, you will have a better idea of what to do with the next sprint.
If you don’t have a website at all right now, consider starting with our Bronze web design package, especially if your web design experience is lacking.
