As the current Project Manager at thirteen05 creative, I see many different types of website projects tasked for us to complete and go out to the web with your success in mind. You name it, we’ve probably done it, or at the very least have done our research into making it possible. All of these website projects have one aspect that’s similar, and that’s having a successful vision in mind that makes the new website a vital tool in representing you, your brand, your products, and/or your company.
Most times these visions aren’t easy to make into a reality, and deserve time and preparation to plan out and coordinate before real work can be done. All in all, the more preparation you do on your end before officially starting the project, the faster it can be completed.
That being said, here are 5 Tips to Help you Prepare your New Website Project for success from a Project Manager’s point-of-view.
1. Your expectations: written out and vocalized.
It’s easy to be confident that your project will go smooth based on your expectations of what will work for you and your company, but it’s even easier to fall into a “timeline snag” of incorrectly communicating those expectations to Web Designers and Developers with 100% success. It’s imperative that you, your team, and your overall business help in developing what’s essential in this new project. Building a website is relatively simple for us. Building your website can be simple if you allow it to be. Help us understand how you and your business plan on utilizing this new tool from an organizational standpoint.
What features are hands-down the most important to include? What’s going to make your site different from all of the others out there? What are the expected conveniences that the complete project can provide? Don’t spare the details. It’s important we know all of this when you’re ready so that we start on the right foot before the project can begin, and we’re more than happy to discuss that with you.
2. Questions before starting: Ask away, right away!
We’d rather try to answer dozens of questions at the beginning than not get a single one until work is well under way. This helps us stay on track with a projected timeline for you and spares us the amount of time it takes to back track. Given that we won’t hesitate to reach out to you for any questions that we may have in moving forward, don’t hesitate to do the same for us.
3. Content, content, content: We’ll need it “yesterday.”
It may be our most sought after info from you, and potentially the most daunting if not pre-developed. It most certainly is our most common step that leaves plenty of projects in timeline “limbo.” Content is simply text, images, and any other pieces of your site that we need directly from you once the site’s functionality and pages are addressed. We set it up, you help us fill it in. Most successful modern sites rely on clear, high-resolution imagery and clear, concise verbiage that best conveys what your site is all about. If you plan to provide most of this yourself, send it over asap. If you need help, we do offer copywriting (or text and verbiage writing) services, and usually include stock imagery and photo editing assistance, just let us know. The bottom line is: you know your business better than anyone, and presumably nobody will know what content should be on the site better than you, so let us know what that needs to be.
4. Your domain, hosting, email, and maintenance situation.
Plenty of questions for you here: What domain will we be launching the new project on? Do you plan to stick with your current hosting plan, create a new one, or have us host things for you? Are your emails setup though your site’s hosting, or externally through Gmail, yahoo, or Microsoft? How do you plan to keep the site maintained and secure month after month? If you plan to sell products online: What payment services will you want to use? Confused on what any of these questions are even asking about? Let’s discuss, we’re happy to help. Note that we’ll either need direct access to the above or need to be in direct contact with your IT team that manages this for you.
5. Progress and Feedback: Plan to make your project a priority.
Expect plenty of emails, calls, and meetings from us on reaching project milestones and needing to demo that progress and verify that all is going according to plan. Unless specifically notified, we won’t want to move past what we’re waiting on your approval for. Your feedback and communication are essential in delivering excellent Customer Service and Quality Assurance. Your project is always a high priority for us, so make sure you make it an equally high priority in your schedule for the best results and the quickest turnaround possible.
Minutes invested in helping us figure out the details at the start can save hours, days, or even weeks later on in the project, so get started today and let us know how it goes. We’ll be ready when you are.
