Develop and Improve a Website

1. Develop and Improve a Website

2. Introduction Aim This presentation is prepared to support and give a general overview of the ‘How to Develop and Improve a Website’ Guide and should be read in conjunction with the publication. Use of the Guide • This guide covers the key elements of developing a website, taking roughly a chronological approach. • Development of corporate website projects should start with a strategic assessment of how they will be integrated with other business processes • Once an appropriate strategy is agreed then work can begin on the implementation process. • The launch of the website merely marks the end of the first phase – it requires monitoring and updating

3. Developing a website • Business-to-business e-business is growing fast, creating a new digital ‘e-conomy’. • The construction industry appears to have lagged behind other industry sectors in its use of the worldwide web, and e-business in particular. • However, this lag has at least allowed the industry to learn from others’ experiences. • Although websites can certainly play a role in promotional activity, they have much greater potential such as managing knowledge and data flows up and down the supply chain.

4. Developing a Website – Key Stages 1. Devise your Internet Strategy 2. Place your web tactics 3. Create your website 4. Go live 5. Promote your website 6. Review and update your website

5. 1. Devise your Internet Strategy 1.1 Define the mission 1.2 Identify the business boundaries 1.3 Identify what differentiates your business from its competitor 1.4 Clarify the potential benefits (and risks) of a website 1.5 Identify the most appropriate e-commerce avenue 1. Devise your Internet Strategy 2. Place your web tactics 3. Create your website 4. Go live 5. Promote your website 6. Review and update your website

6. 1. Devise your Internet Strategy • 1.1 Define the mission • Be clear about the nature of your business, the reasons for its existence, and the customers and market(s) to be served. • 1.2 Identify the business boundaries • Define some boundaries in terms of your customer groups, customer needs, and the technology and people used. • 1.3 Identify what differentiates your business from its competitors • What is unique or distinctive about the way you deliver your services, treat your customers, think, react and innovate. • 1.4 Clarify the potential benefits (and risks) of a website • You need to make a strong business case for going online, clearly identifying the business benefits. By putting your objectives in a business context, you ensure that the business dictates the technology not vice versa. • You should also be more aware of potential risks, and you may even have formulated ideas about how to maximise the benefits while minimising the risks. • 1.5 Identify the most appropriate e-commerce avenue • You should also be clearer about which of the three main areas of e-business are most relevant to your business, at least in the immediate future: • Direct Marketing • Value chain trading • Employee self service 1. Devise your Internet Strategy

7. 2. Plan your web tactics 2.2 Key questions that determine the target audience(s) for the website 2.3 Questions that should be asked when identifying the website features need to meet your audience’s needs 2.4 Identify what additional information might be required 2.1 Involve all parties likely to be affected by the website project 2.6 Integrate the website with other communication processes 2.5 Consider the impact on the different areas of the business 2.7 Agree project brief, budget and programme 1. Devise your Internet Strategy 2. Place your web tactics 3. Create your website 4. Go live 5. Promote your website 6. Review and update your website

8. 2. Plan your web tactics • 2.1 Involve all parties likely to be affected by the website project • Once you have devised your web strategy, start to think about the resources and tactics needed to implement the project. • 2.2 Key questions that determine the target audience(s) for the website • Define and research your audience. Find out what they need. What do you want them to do or think? What else is happening that may affect your place in the supply chain • 2.3 Questions that should be asked when identifying the website features need to meet your audience’s needs • Have we identified a niche in the market? How do we target different customers? What will attract them to our website? What will get visitors to come back? • 2.4 Identify what additional information might be required • Data often needs to be available in more than just text form. For example, nowadays, product information can be ordered and, increasingly, delivered in a range of formats. 2. Plan your web tactics

9. 2. Plan your web tactics • 2.6 Integrate the website with other communication processes • How will you handle the enquiries generated? • What is your email policy? • Can you improve your customer relationship? • How much are you prepared to spend? • Will you need to change your branding? • 2.7 Agree project brief, budget and programme • Added to your strategic overview of how the website will provide business benefits, consideration of the website features and potential information requirements will go along way to producing a clear brief. • You will also have a better appreciation of likely effects on other parts of the business and how the website might form part of a wider communications programme. • Your project team should also understand more about resources required to move the project forward and be able to suggest a timetable for the project. • 2.5 Consider the impact on the different areas of the business • What is the impact on your current distribution model? • How will you handle orders? • How often should it be updated? • What are the legal ramifications? 2. Plan your web tactics

10. 3. Create your website 3.1 Decide on in-house or external supplier(s) 3.2 Identify the skills and resources needed by your website designer 3.3 Research, agree and register appropriate domain name(s) 3.4 Build in appropriate levels of security 3.5 Integrate back-office IT structures and processes with website 1. Devise your Internet Strategy 2. Place your web tactics 3. Create your website 4. Go live 5. Promote your website 6. Review and update your website

11. 3. Create your website • 3.1 Decide on in-house or external supplier(s) • Large corporations are investing hundreds of thousands of pounds in creating and promoting their websites. • In contract, many smaller businesses have learned to use HTML to launch successful sites costing just a few pounds a month to run. • Others look to professional consultants or specialists in website design, development and other services. • 3.2 Identify the skills and resources needed by your website designer • Earlier effort expended in understanding your business direction will have helped you write a clear brief outlining what you want to achieve and what tactics you think will achieve them. • 3.3 Research, agree and register appropriate domain name(s) • A good domain name is short, memorable, not easily confused with others, hard to misspell, and related to your core business. • Companies are increasingly buying and using more than one domain name to avoid confusion in the market, to capture traffic, to have the company name too, to protect existing/future product names and to target particular customer groups. • 3.5 Integrate back-office IT structures and processes with website • Professional web designers can also help integrate your back-office systems with your website. • 3.4 Build in appropriate levels of security • A specialist website consultancy can help if sophisticated programming is required for online transactions. • Off-the-shelf e-commerce packages can be used to create the customer order interface. • Highlight your security measures to reassure people about confidentiality. 3. Create your website

12. 4. Go live 4.1 Decide upon appropriate web-hosting option 4.2 Test the design 4.3 Test the business processes 4.4 Test the infrastructure 4.5 Test the market 1. Devise your Internet Strategy 2. Place your web tactics 3. Create your website 4. Go live 5. Promote your website 6. Review and update your website

13. 4. Go live • 4.1 Decide upon appropriate web-hosting option • Access to your site requires the webpages to be uploaded to a webserver that is permanently connected to the internet. • Depending on resources there are three main options: Host your own server; use ISP-provided free-space and use ISP web hosting. • 4.2 Test the design • As your website is being designed it will need to be tested, e.g. the design of different versions that are optimised for particular browsers, performance, etc. • 4.3 Test the business processes • Testing should also apply to back office processes. • 4.4 Test the infrastructure • Only by thorough testing can businesses be confident that their e-business systems will work first time and continue to work under different conditions. • 4.5 Test the market • Particularly for existing businesses, details of the new website can be sent to existing customers so that they can preview the site. • This allows genuine customers to provide both critical and constructive feedback. 4. Go live

14. 5. Promote your website 5.2 Publicise the website URL on all company communications 5.3 Register the site with search engines and web directories 5.4 Seek reciprocal links with other websites, including portals if appropriate 5.1 Start promotion activity before you launch your website 1. Devise your Internet Strategy 2. Place your web tactics 3. Create your website 4. Go live 5. Promote your website 6. Review and update your website

15. 5. Promote your website • 5.1 Start promotion activity before you launch your website • It is important that you do not wait until your site goes live before launching a promotional campaign. • As it can take weeks or months to build visibility, so it pays to start thinking about promotion some weeks before your site is launched. • 5.2 Publicise the website URL on all company communications • Publicise the website through conventional media such as public relations, exhibitions, direct marketing, advertising and word of mouth. • In addition, you should also think about new communication opportunities via the Internet. • 5.3 Register the site with search engines and web directories • Devote time to registering your website URL with the major sites, e.g. AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, Yahoo, etc. • Ensure your webpage content is search engine friendly and clearly identifies your niche in the market. • 5.4 Seek reciprocal links with other websites, including portals if appropriate • Banner advertising usually across the top of the host web page. • Associate/affiliate programmes such as where you offer a percentage of any sales resulting from the click-through to the affiliate for having a link to your site. • Seek reciprocal links with sites run by suppliers and related, non-competing professionals. • Depending upon your marketing objectives, you might seeks portals, which are international, industry-specific or even local 5. Promote your website

16. 6. Review and update your site 6.1 Keep the site up-to-date 6.2 Monitor traffic 6.3 Welcome visitor feedback 6.4 Refresh the site periodically 1. Devise your Internet Strategy 2. Place your web tactics 3. Create your website 4. Go live 5. Promote your website 6. Review and update your website

17. 6. Review and update your site • 6.1 Keep the site up-to-date • First impressions count and while most potential customers will accept that a brochure will quickly become out-of-date, few will be as forgiving if your website is not maintained. • Ask yourself: is this the behaviour of a professional business? Does such a company care about their customer communications? • 6.2 Monitor traffic • Don’t focus solely on the number of hits, look at server logs, or use web traffic monitoring software that give details of how people found your site, how long they stayed, what they looked at, when, etc. • Use this data to plan your website upgrades or refine your promotional work. • 6.3 Welcome visitor feedback • Just as you did during your test marketing, react constructively to points raised post-launch. • 6.4 Refresh the site periodically • In addition to the routine updates, most businesses plan to ‘refresh’ their site periodically. • The exact time interval varies from business to business, but the look and feel of many sites is renewed almost annually. • However, should your company reach the point where new purposes need to be satisfied then now is the time to return to your original strategy. Review this in the light of the new requirements, and then start the website development process all over again. • New areas of e-business may well involve the creation of secure links between different businesses’ websites. 6. Review and update your site

18. Where to find more information Information Technology Construction Best Practice Programme www.itcbp.org.uk The ITCBP programme identifies, publicises and supports the use of IT to improve business and management practices for the construction industry. It is funded by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and is an initiative within the Construction Best Practice Programme, steered jointly by government and the Construction Industry Board.   The ITCBP web site contains information on the ‘How to Guides’ and also a wide range of useful case study summaries outlining what companies did, why, how and with what results. Construct IT For Business www.construct-it.org.uk Construct IT is a membership organisation set up to co-ordinate and promote innovation and research in IT in construction in the UK to improve the competitive performance of the UK construction industry. The Construction Industry Computing Association (CICA) www.cica.org.uk The CICA is a membership organisation established to promote the effective use of information technology in design, construction and property. It provides impartial advice, information and consultancy to the construction industry.

19. Where to find more information The Construction Industry Trading Electronically (CITE) www.cite.org.uk CITE is a collaborative electronic information exchange initiative for the UK construction industry. Their web site includes a FAQ section that answers many of the most frequently asked questions concerning e-business UK Online for Business www.ukonlineforbusiness.gov.uk Formerly the Information Society Initiative, UK Online for business provides small businesses (up to 250 employees) with impartial advice on using information and communications technology. UK Online for business has at its centre a network of over one hundred Centres offering jargon free help and advice on using technology efficiently. Of particular relevance are their guides ‘E-commerce: how trading on-line can work for you’ and ‘Doing Business Online: How to apply information and communication technologies to help your business’ both of which are available free to small businesses. Legal Issues The Electronic Communications Act 2000 and explanatory notes can be viewed online at www.uk-legislation.hmso.gov.uk/Acts.htm. This act is intended to make the UK the best and safest place to do electronic commerce. A guide is available at www.dti.gov.uk/cii