Strategies In The Websites Business
July 16th, 2011 by kct from shrewdies | Filed under 4. Strategy.When you’re in the websites business, clients expect their sites to appear overnight, forgetting that before you start producing the site, you must have a plan.
My pages on how to develop detailed strategies are a bit sparse, but I will be rectifying that shortly. I have been busy creating site plans for clients, and I’ll share the details soon. This is one management task that is difficult to pass to others, but I have developed methods that make it easy for you to direct, even if you do not want to do the detailed number-crunching.
In fact, I am introducing this as a web business service, as it seems many budding web business owners find it difficult to spare the time. This is particularly true when the purpose of the business is to promote and extend an existing off-line business.
To a certain extent, with an existing business, the early phases of identifying Purpose, clarifying expected Rewards, and setting Objectives are very straightforward. When I take on a project to plan and implement a website, I still try to formalize these phases in the development agreement, as they make very useful reference points for the detailed plan.
Two of my websites business projects are currently at the Strategy stage:
- Rejuvenating a vanity site to make it earn money for the business
- Improving traffic for an existing web business.
The first project started as a simple site transfer from Flash to WordPress. For this type of task it is important not to rush in and simply start transferring content. The client brief was to retain similar look and feel. If you are in that situation, it is OK to instruct your development team to work on graphics and other theme related issues. Do not start on content until you have the blueprint.
The second project follows an Appreciation exercise that has identified the need to refocus part of the business. Appreciation routines, especially on a daily and weekly basis, usually provide feedback to direct Production and Reap tasks. This is a six month review after identifying new Key Performance Indicators based on the most profitable activities. Though the details are different, as data is now generated from actuals, with so many changes, it pays to generate a new site blueprint. This ensures that opportunities related to the successful products and services are not missed.
I’ll write more on other management aspects of these projects later. One significant outcome of these projects is my realization that busy managers of existing businesses find it difficult to find the time to follow my procedures for generating a detailed strategy plan.
Therefore, I am extended the services offered by my websites business to include strategic site blueprint development. I have not finalized the prices just yet, but I will put the new details there very soon. To make sure you don’t miss them, please subscribe to the update service using the form above.
Do you have questions, opinions or experiences regarding topics in this Strategies In The Websites Business article? Please discuss any issues or questions about pre-production website planning at Discuss Strategies For Web Business. For other questions about web business management, please use the appropriate discussion page.
