Website Development

1. Revenue: a website should work for you - day and night. It should generate leads you can turn into revenue according to your "conversion goals". A website should be conversion optimized for your target group.

2. Design: your website should appeal to your target group, which does not automatically mean that it fits the personal taste of everyone in your organization - not even your own. The design of your website is the bait you are fishing with and the bait has be tasty for the fish, not necessarily for the fisherman.

3. Functionality: your website should be functional - both on frontend and backends. It may require a user registration and login area with multiple levels of permissions you can control. There are dozens of major functionalities that are common, widely used and probably of interest to your target group.

4. Interaction: your website needs to provide easy response mechanisms for prospects.

5. Call-To-Action: your website should have a clear offer and call visitors to action which leads to the conversion goals you want to reach. This may range from collecting user information for newsletter distribution or personal follow up to selling a product or ask for a donation.

6. Distinction: your website should be unique and disctinct - both in design and content. It should distinguish you "from the crowd" of other websites which compete in the same market.

7. Content: your website should be loaded with the content your prospects are looking for. It should add value to the reader, offer advice and make their life simpler. It should portrait you as the "go-to" expert of your industry, verified by the knowledge you share on your website. Due to this rule - the utilization of on-demand and/or live-streaming media is highly recommended and has become almost a must.

8. Search Engines: another reason for high-quality content - as search engines pick up the content on your website while trying to evaluate how important your website might be to searchers. Content is king. Besides content: the code and link structure, the meta information and various other factors matter as well. Your website needs to be search engine optimized.

9. Social Media: your website should link to your social media sites, but also allow your visitors to engage on social media channels with a single click and to advertise for you by sharing your content with friends and by "liking" you publicly.

10. Flexibility: your website should be easy to navigate and easy to extend. It should be built on an expandable foundation - in its code, its database structure, its multi-language abilities, its content management system, its navigation structure. Why? Simply because it can! Websites are ever-evolving, ever-growing and morphing internet spheres, which should be scalable to your future needs. Nothing is more nerve-wrecking than realizing that you wasted a lot of time and money on a website you need to dump and replace because it cannot evolve and grow the way you need it to (or at least not at a legitimate cost). Even though your website project may look small right now: make sure it is built in a way that it can evolve and grow over time as your requirements and needs change.

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