Inbound 15: Growth driven Design Part 2

One of the biggest factors that slows website development projects is that everyone wants to have a say in what the site does and how it will operate. Make sure that you are only addressing one stakeholder at a time. This can be explained to each invested party by telling them that their concerns will be addressed in time and that no immediate changes will be affecting their ability to use the current website.Another hurdle to keeping your website relevant is the difficulty of working with an older content management system. You’ll want to make sure you build your site on a platform that lets you adjust rapidly.

Perhaps the best part about growth driven design is that is that it’s very SEO friendly. Search engines such as Google like websites that are regularly kept up-to-date. The nature of such an approach works well with search algorithms. Also, because you’re avoiding huge changes, you don’t face giant obstacles that will impede your progress.

Minimum Redesign

Minimum redesign in this context means that rather than trying to create a new website (or upgrade) that addresses everything you should instead focus on the minimal improvement that will get a result.

In most cases there are one or two notable issues that need to be addressed:

  1. The look and feel of the site is dated or is not effective on mobile.
  2. The site is not built to convert visitors to leads.

For the first phase or iteration, this is all you should be aiming to fix. Do not try to rewrite all of the content or update every single page right away. The result of these first changes will be enhanced lead generation.

The most common way to break things up is to split the website improvements into different phases. Create a list that should look something like this:

  1. Create a basic website focused on design and leads.
  2. Content rewrites for non-critical pages.

Finally, don’t sweat the small stuff. If you can’t address something in the first phase or iteration, you’ll be on to the next step quickly, and can address it then. (imaginellc.com)