Thinking of re-designing your website to add new functionality? Here are tips to help you initiate your web project planning. Your web developer will likely ask you a few questions to get a feel for what you are seeking to accomplish. Typical questions include:

Rapid assessment:
. What is your current website address?
. Are you currently tracking your site’s performance and if so, how is the site working for you?
. What are strong website attributes that you would like to improve/maintain?
. What are website attributes that no longer serve you well?

Inspirational thinking:
. Have you seen websites (or apps) that you like?
. What are the URLs of the sites/apps that you like and what specifically do you like about those sites (for eg: layout, font, special feature, …)
. What are you trying to achieve (eg: generate more traffic, monetize content, improve your corporate image, …)
. What information would you like to capture from users and for what purpose?
. What content would you like to provide to users in exchage for the information they provide?
. Do you have a vision for what your site could look like? (eg: colour scheme, modern, artsy, …)

Features sought:
. What new features do you want implemented? (eg: blog, application database, eCommerce, …)
. Have you seen this feature well implemented in another site (url)?
. Have you done research regarding this new feature?
. . What are your expectations for this feature (eg: ROI, performance enhancement, …)
. Why do you believe this feature needed?
. How do you envision this feature being integrated in your website or app?
. Do you have an in-house IT department that should be involved in development? Do you have a strategy for ongoing maintenance?

Content Creation:
. Do you have in-house resources for content creation, writing/editing, marketing, testing, documentation, graphic design?
. What new content will need to be created, migrated? Do you have a Content Strategy?

Application Documentation:
. Do you have any documentation (eg: code, notes, white papers, …) for features that you would like to maintain?
. Where is your website currently hosted?
. Can you provide your hosting account login details (ftp access) so that developers can have a look “under the hood”

Targeted Audience:
. What audience (eg: gender, age, occupation, interests, …) are you trying to reach?

Who’s on Your Radar?
. List a few competitors. What are key offerings in their website or app?
. What makes (or would make) you better than the competition?

Budget and Deliverables:
. What is the range of your project budget?
. What is your project timeline?
. Are there priorities in the project development?

Key success factors:
. What does website/app success mean to you (user friendliness, site/app traffic, monetization, …)?

Plan you web project wisely for best results! Together, we will make it happen! :)

What are Biz Apps?

Biz Apps (ie. Business Applications) are business software programs that perform specific functions and provide answers.

A Biz App is accessed with a web or mobile browser over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. In contrast to client-side software (that need to be installed on your PCs) BizApps can be upgraded with new components without requiring upgrades on each workstation using the application. This results in lower support cost and increased productivity.

Biz Apps Rule the World

There’s no better way to learn a new technology than to becoming a user. Gotta say, WordPress takes a tad of “getting used to”, mainly to set-up the look that you want and to incorporate appropriate functionality. It is pretty user friendly though, so no worries. I started with an existing theme but it didn’t quite have what I needed so I had to get familiar with plug-ins, widgets and all those fun hunks of code. That was a wonderful discovery. When I think of the amount of coding that we traditionally developed to add functionality for special elements, it is amazing to see how easy it is to integrate functions in WordPress.

I took a couple of WordPress courses to learn how to created new themes, how to customize themes for mobile environments, and how to secure WordPress sites and let me tell you, they came in handy. A few weeks after installing this WordPress site on a development server, it was hacked and my ISP informed me that they did not offer WordPress support so I reverted to my notes! It’s one thing to do a class assignment but another to work on the real stuff. I successfully closed security loops, installed new security plugins and widgets. Site back-ups are now automated and come in via my DropBox app. All good. I’m hesitating switching to another ISP for WP support because they handle all of my other stuff so well.

There are benefits to having a traditional HTML website, but I’m seeing more and more benefits to having a Hybrid Web solution, one that includes both a WordPress site and an HTML5 site.

Next-up is getting french sliders and images to appear properly in the French version of this blog site. Haven’t quite figured that one out just yet but am working on it. Blogs and to some extent, websites are always works in progress so don’t let that hold you back from making it live.

Help me, help you. Please let me know what you would like to hear about.

This is such a wonderful time to be in the Web Business. ツ

Webzie