BUYER S GUIDE WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

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1 BUYER S GUIDE WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT At Curzon we understand the importance of user focused design.

2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This document is designed to provide prospective clients with a short guide to website development what it is, how it benefits your brand and the processes and timelines involved. WHAT IS EVENT MANAGEMENT? Website development can range from a single static page of plain text to the most complex web-based internet applications. A project is typically broken down into three stages: planning, design and development. Each stage represents approximately one third of the entire timeline of a project. 1. Website planning Create an outline of the site content. Create the website wireframe. Gather general information including samples, style guides, images and graphic files. Begin writing content. Create wireframe layouts of key pages showing the position of content and graphics on pages Website design Create colour layouts based on approved wireframe layouts. Shoot photography or research stock photography. Develop graphics. Create a style guide of colours and fonts for site development. 3. Website development Develop style sheets. Develop web page templates. Programming.

3 HOW DOES WEB DEVELOPMENT BENEFIT YOUR BRAND? Thanks to the exponential growth of the digital market, it is essential to have a website. It is a primary source of information about your brand and the products or services you provide for your existing and potential customers. An effective website is a good tool for your marketing and contributes to the following: 1. Online presence 24/7: Having a website means customers are always able to find you anytime, anywhere. Even outside of business hours, your website continues to find and secure new customers. It offers convenience, as users can always access the information they need. 2. Information exchange: At its simplest, a website provides a quick and easy means of communicating information between you and your customers. You can show images of your products and services, provide information on your company or organisation and use contact forms to facilitate enquiries from potential customers. You can upload promotional videos to further engage your customers and sell your brand s products and services. This is a good way to promote your social media channels and build up a community with your customers. 3. Credibility: In today s digital world there is an expectation for any reputable brand to have some kind of online presence. Having an easy-to-use website makes customers feel comfortable using your services, as they will assume they can expect the same positive experience from your brand. 4. Reaching a wider audience: As your site is accessible to anyone around the world, the ability to break through geographical barriers has never been easier. Anyone, from any country, will be able to find your brand and, as such, becomes a potential customer.

4 5. Consumer insights: Analytic tools allow you to identify who your typical customer is, how they found you and what they like. You can then adapt your business to maximise purchases via your website. The diverse range of data available can also help you better understand how your social media channels affect your brand. Via the website, you can highlight offline opportunities, such as events, promotions and new services or products. 6. Publicity and advertising Tools like Google AdWords or advertising on Facebook give you the power to reach customers with much more accuracy and reliability than with traditional offline advertising methods. SEO and online advertising are a great way to help build up awareness. If this is done in the right way, traffic to your website can see a marked increase. Be the first company that a potential new customer sees when searching for a specific product or service online and use your website s contact page or e-commerce features to make purchasing a product or finding a retail outlet easier than ever before. 7. Online competitors If you don t have a website, it is highly likely your competitor will. By having a website, instead of missing out on new opportunities, you can be at the forefront of your potential customers minds. 8. Growth opportunity Websites are great resources for you to direct potential investors toward. It shows them what your company is about, what it has achieved and what it may be capable of in the future. 9. Build your reputation Become or remain the expert by demonstrating knowledge and expertise in your area of work. Write blog posts and articles on the site that educate visitors and help them understand your business and its offerings.

5 THE PROCESS-STAGES AND TIMELINES 1. Initial meeting and planning Before the website build can begin, several processes need to be carried out. After receiving your initial brief and site outline, we begin our research. We will research your industry, current web trends, as well as suitable functions to include in the site build. This research is then presented in our initial meeting. Together, we can discuss your brief and our initial research, deciding on what suits your needs most effectively. After this first meeting, we will work on putting together a design outline, allowing you to see broadly what your new website will look like and the estimated timeframes. After further research by us, we will look into the structure of your site, any analytical data that is available and build on comments made during the proposal stage and our initial set of meetings. At our next meeting, having integrated all the research and feedback, we show you how we will tailor your website to your detailed and specific needs. Overall, this first stage will take up to one week. It is important to ensure throughout that there is a plan and timeline in place. This allows the next steps to go ahead more quickly, as we are working towards a clear and defined goal. 2. Design Once we ve managed to secure a plan for your website, it s time to start designing. Our team will work on creating initial designs based on the structure decided in the previous stage. As before, this is a collaborative effort, so we continue to encourage feedback. We will do everything we can to ensure your website portrays your brand accurately and professionally. We can then make edits and amendments to the design in light of our meetings and present them again for approval. Once approved, our team will work on the resultant designs. Responsive design allows designs to be compatible with all technology devices. For example, a user viewing your site on a smartphone will see a slightly different layout compared to a user viewing your site on a desktop computer. Once these responsive designs have been signed off, we move on to the actual build of the site. Overall, this stage will typically take up to two weeks.

6 3. Build Our web developers will work on turning the approved designs into a working website, integrating any functions required, such as e-commerce or log-in portals. All of our builds include responsive design and this is integrated from the beginning. Whilst this is happening, we ask that you start preparing the content for your site (if you have not already contracted Curzon PR to create this for you). We will then send over a link to your site and request your feedback. This will allow our developers to complete the final stages of the development, including building any news feeds or blogs to be included as part of the final site. Once the build and development have been finalised, we can start inputting the content that you ve prepared and the site is ready to go live. This stage typically takes up to three to four weeks. 4. Review and support Once your site is live, there s still work to do. As well as continuing to support your site, we will organise a performance review four weeks after it goes live. This gives you an idea of how it is performing and what you can do to improve your results, including digital marketing strategies. This stage typically takes one week.

7 HOW DO WE MEASURE SUCCESS? The best way to measure the success of a website development project is by using metrics. THE METRICS 1) Number of visitors (and their source): One of the key metrics is the number of visitors your site sees each month. Getting people to come to your site is always the first step. Keep an eye on spikes in traffic or sudden decreases. When you see a big increase, you'll want to know where it came from. If you see a big drop-off in visitors, you'll want to ascertain as quickly as possible how or why it happened. Also, take a look at how the visitors are coming to your site. Are they finding your site through a Google organic search, from social media channels or from a referral link? Get to know the trends on your site, too. 2) Bounce rate: The bounce rate is the percentage of visits that go to only one page before exiting a site. This could include visitors who: a. Leave your site by clicking an external link on the web page b. Press the browser back button c. Type another URL into the web browser d. Close the browser window or tab e. Don't interact with the web page for a long time and go to a session timeout You need to understand whether visitors are sticking around when they hit your site or are leaving right away. Have you made a recent change or update to your site that could be causing a higher bounce rate? If so, see if you can carry out a fix to solve the problem. Take a look at the sources and determine those that are sending visitors with the highest bounce rates. Understanding this data helps you to make improvements and focus more on sources that send quality traffic.

8 4. Social media engagement: It is a given that your brand will be active on social media, especially on the days leading up to the event. When attendees react to a post, through a share, like, re-tweet or repost, it broadens your social media reach. Post-event, it is important that the posting is continued, as it will give you an indication of how the event resonated with the attendees. It is important to thank all those who attended. This helps to ensure they attend your next event, interact with your brand and share their experience with their network, thus increasing your audience. 5. Revenue: Assuming the purpose of your event is to create brand awareness and broaden your customer base, it is important to measure: Anticipated cost vs. actual cost. Anticipated revenue vs. actual revenue. Actual cost vs. actual revenue.

9 3) Average time on page: How long are visitors spending on your pages? Is it long enough for you to get your point across? If you have informative videos on your site, you will want your visitors to view them. If the films average around four minutes in length, does your time-on-page allow visitors long enough to watch them? Much like when analysing your bounce rate, take a look at which sources are sending you the most-qualified visitors who spend enough time on your pages. What we need from you to ensure the smooth execution of your project: In order for the website project to be successful, we ask you to be as responsive as possible. This helps us to complete it on time. Delays in holding meetings, approvals and receiving information such as professional images and copy for the website (if you have not contracted us to create this for you) will lead to a delay in it being delivered in the time quoted after our initial planning meeting. Clear communication and accurate information provided to us will mean we are less likely to exceed the set of edits included in the price of the project. Any further edits will be charged at the rates on our agency rate card. We would recommend that you allocate one member of your team as our direct point of contract throughout the project. DELIVERABLES We will give you a project plan including estimates of the number of approximate hours (or days) required for the project and the approximate delivery date of your completed website. We will discuss in our initial meeting what it is you want from your website, which will determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) for your project. Here are a few examples of the KPIs: Increased number of leads via the website Increased online conversions Increased newsletter subscriptions More traffic generated Higher competitive key phrase search engine rankings Increased brand awareness Improved usability Increased time spent on the website

10 FURTHER READING How the internet is affecting Public Relations WHAT IS THE COST? All our projects are bespoke To get further information and please priced accordingly. contact us: