Thinking of re-launching your Web site? Don’t even know where to start? Keep in mind that overhauling a site doesn't have to be a daunting task. Here are five items to think about to help you get started.

1) Strategy, Phases & Funding

Identify your business goals. What do you need your site to do: inform, build your brand, funnel leads to your sales staff? And how will you measure success? Design your site accordingly.

Determine which department is responsible for the site. Ideally, marketing is in charge. This way, it's in the hands of those who rely on it the most.

Obviously you can't do everything at once, so work in phases. If the site hasn't been changed in a while, brand updates might take precedence. If your goal is to generate more leads, start with optimizing content for keywords. The bottom line: Choose priorities based on business goals.

When creating a budget, keep in mind that maintenance is an ongoing process. You'll continually require resources to update landing pages, content, design and more.

2) Select a web partner

You'll need outside expertise, unless you happen to have in-house specialists for branding, design, tech infrastructure, search engine optimization (SEO), ecommerce, security, hosting, cross-browser compatibility and web copywriting…whew! Look for a company with proven success, and possibly one that specializes in your sector.

3) Content management

Determine the who, when and how of managing content. Select a web content management system (Web CMS) that makes it easy for even non-technical people to add or change content in about 30 seconds. Yes, this is possible, and essential, considering the speed with which information travels online. The vendor must provide support during and after the launch, have a solid and future-looking product plan and offer templates designed according to best practices.

4) Technology infrastructure

Check that you have at least 99.9 percent uptime and data backups, and review your Service Level Agreement.

5) Measure, measure, measure

Incorporate web analytics to track the number of visitors, where they're coming from, fluctuations in traffic, what visitors are doing on your site, where they're exiting and whether or not you were able to convert them to customers.

Remember, it’s important to keep your Web site relevant, up-to-date, and optimized in order to build business. Therefore, it's good practice to do a re-launch every two to three years.

In my next post I'll go into more detail about what to look for when selecting a Web CMS vendor. In the meantime, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me via the Comments area below.

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