Website Development Strategy
If you don't want to waste a lot of money or even hundreds of thousands on designing your website, you need to consider your future website development strategy right from the start. What will the final web design package include, and will it allow you to grow? If not; Will the company you use help you grow online or will it simply leave the site to you by yourself?
There is a very strong reason to double-insisting any of the above issues. Say if you're spending £100,000 to develop your website, just to want a design change, or if you have major additions that just can't be integrated into your existing website without spending a lot of money, you could waste a lot of money. You may want to add a shopping cart after more and more people start using the site, for example.
If you don't plan to develop your future website, you may find that when it comes to upgrading your site, all of your original $100,000 has been wasted if the site needs to be rebuilt from scratch.
It's very easy to start adding unplanned items to a website, only to suddenly discover that two key elements can't be easily integrated into one another. In this situation, you may have to start over. It's also very difficult for a web company to give a quote based on 'if', so make sure you have an idea of what you want your new website to achieve!
However, while these scenarios often occur in surprising ways, they can be avoided from the start by defining a future web development strategy with your web design or development company.
One scenario is that you may want a basic website with only information about the company as part of the first phase of development, in the second phase, you may want to add a corporate blog, in the third phase , you may want to add a full shopping cart to the site, in the fourth phase, you may want to integrate it into your new financial system for reporting purposes (but you may not have installed this new financial system 12 months later).
An example of where you may run into problems is if you don't let your website designer know what you want the shopping cart to fit into your future new financial system. If you don't let them know, they can in good faith install a shopping cart system that simply cannot be integrated into your new financial system.
The net result of this is that you may then have to pay for a new shopping cart system that integrates with your new financial system. As mentioned earlier; A web company can't run on "ifs" and doesn't pay attention to readers - so be sure to work with a company that can understand your business needs from start to finish. A good web developer will identify things like expansion and may recommend that your design take certain paths to ensure you don't end up in a bind when you want to expand the site.
There is a very strong reason to double-insisting any of the above issues. Say if you're spending £100,000 to develop your website, just to want a design change, or if you have major additions that just can't be integrated into your existing website without spending a lot of money, you could waste a lot of money. You may want to add a shopping cart after more and more people start using the site, for example.
If you don't plan to develop your future website, you may find that when it comes to upgrading your site, all of your original $100,000 has been wasted if the site needs to be rebuilt from scratch.
It's very easy to start adding unplanned items to a website, only to suddenly discover that two key elements can't be easily integrated into one another. In this situation, you may have to start over. It's also very difficult for a web company to give a quote based on 'if', so make sure you have an idea of what you want your new website to achieve!
However, while these scenarios often occur in surprising ways, they can be avoided from the start by defining a future web development strategy with your web design or development company.
One scenario is that you may want a basic website with only information about the company as part of the first phase of development, in the second phase, you may want to add a corporate blog, in the third phase , you may want to add a full shopping cart to the site, in the fourth phase, you may want to integrate it into your new financial system for reporting purposes (but you may not have installed this new financial system 12 months later).
An example of where you may run into problems is if you don't let your website designer know what you want the shopping cart to fit into your future new financial system. If you don't let them know, they can in good faith install a shopping cart system that simply cannot be integrated into your new financial system.
The net result of this is that you may then have to pay for a new shopping cart system that integrates with your new financial system. As mentioned earlier; A web company can't run on "ifs" and doesn't pay attention to readers - so be sure to work with a company that can understand your business needs from start to finish. A good web developer will identify things like expansion and may recommend that your design take certain paths to ensure you don't end up in a bind when you want to expand the site.
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