While every project is different, these are some of the typical questions every non-profit should ask when tackling a website build or re-design.
1. Objectives of this project:
• What are the main reasons you need a website or are redesigning your site?
• How will you measure the success of the project?
• What are your secondary objectives? (examples include increased traffic, marketing/branding awareness, and fewer customer service calls.) Discuss both your long- and short-term goals.
• What existing strategies (both on- and offline) are in place to meet the new business objectives?
2. Proposed site:
• How big will the website be? (Ten carefully designed program pages? Primarily static information or interactive content, etc.)
• Will your website have interactive or streaming media (audio, video – embedded from YouTube or self-hosted, etc.)?
• What other types of content will your new website have? (e.g. Documents (will they primarily be PDFs?); Adobe Flash files; Animation; Music; Slide shows; Content feeds (from other websites, for example); Photos or Photo gallery; Twitter stream; Facebook “friends”; RSS or other feeds, Articles / Blogs, Banner advertising (display ads or classified), job postings, bulletin boards, live chat forums, event calendars, email newsletters, discussion forum, staff directory, site search, etc.)
• Have you already created the website content? If not, how soon do you anticipate having it ready to launch?
• Will your website have content inter-relationships (e.g. content appears in multiple places and do you want to be able to update it once and then have it automatically update in all the places it appears on your website)
3. Technology:
• What specific technologies would you like to use? (e.g. do you have a content management system, will you want your website to be responsive design (automatically resize to user screens), do you have any APIs requirements (connections to third-party software such as email platforms)
• Do you need email accounts with your website?
• Will the new site be an eCommerce site (e.g. shopping carts) or connect to a third-party service? (Paypal, Canada helps, peer-to-peer fundraising, etc.)
• Will the new site need to connect / tie into any other client-facing systems? (e.g. forms tied to a database (order forms, feedback forms, registration forms, newsletter subscription forms, event registration, etc.)
• Do have you a significant number of external links to other sites? Do you need link management tools?
• Do you need outgoing RSS feeds or social sharing links (e.g. Mail to a friend button)
• Do you need site search for people to search within your website?
• Do you have any specific accessibility requirements or will WCAG 2.0 AA standards be required?
• What analytics will you require for your new site? Will you be using Google Analytics or other measurement software? Will the team need help setting these up?
• Do you need to have multiple vanity URLs – program landing pages that have distinct URLs or web addresses you want to continue with (e.g. NFPName.org/programname vs. NFPprogramname.org)
• While your website is focused on your clients – does it need to also perform some intranet duties? (e.g FTP site, private staff login pages, etc.)
4. What level of skills does the website team have currently?
• HTML skills? Yes:___ No:___
• Java skills? Yes:___ No:___
• Photoshop skills? Yes:___ No:___
• Database skills? Yes:___ No:___ which databases:
• Server-side development skills? Yes:___ No:___
• FTP experience? Yes:___ No:___
• Website management experience? Yes:___ No:___
• Internet marketing knowledge and experience? Yes:___ No:___
5. Website Hosting and Maintenance:
• Do you need to include hosting in your website RFP or will you be hosting with another / existing provider?
• Do you need support to make changes and keep your website current? Or will you be making the updates yourself or from another provider?
• If you will be using third-party services for website content maintenance, how often do you believe your website will need to be updated with new information? (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually)
• How often will the website be backed up. What are the redundancy needs?
What is the maintenance plan / needs? (e.g. who will conduct any software updates / patches, etc.)
• Will you need help with search engine optimization / search engine and directory submissions
If your team doesn’t have the time to ensure a robust needs assessment and RFP process don’t hesitate to call us. We can facilitate discussions to identify what your website needs are and help project manage the RFP process to ensure the team finds the right suppliers to implement your plan.
Looking for some other resources as you plan? Consider:
How people navigate the web
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/information-foraging/
Qi of web content –
https://design.canada.ca/continuous-improvement.html