3 Approaches to Build or Redesign Your Website (And the Benefits of Taking a Long View)

If you’re in the market for a new or redesigned website, you’re undoubtedly asking several key questions. How long will the project take? How much will it cost? And which web development partner should you hire to deliver the solution you’re looking for?

But you won’t be able to answer those questions until you get to the heart of something even more foundational. What’s the best way to get where you want to go? And where do you want to go in the first place? An iterative process may be the best way to proceed for your organization.

It all comes down to your organization’s particular needs and business objectives. In general, there are three ways you could approach your web development project, and there are valid reasons to select any of the following scenarios. However, we recommend giving particular attention to option three since it provides the largest long-term benefit. 

1. Launch a Single, End-to-End Website Development Project 

When marketing leaders initially think about rebuilding or redesigning their website, an end-to-end scenario is probably what comes to mind. This option takes you through a robust discovery phase all the way through website design and development, concluding with the delivery of a complete end product.

A comprehensively scoped project may be attractive if:

• You have ample budget and the time to allocate to the project — or your needs are fairly simple and straightforward
• Your scope is clear and you know exactly what outcomes you want to achieve
• There’s little chance your organization’s requirements will change within the next several years

However, if your organization has complex needs that change over time, an end-to-end project is not ideal. Why? It’s often cost- or time-prohibitive to meet every need or include every desired feature in a single project. And even if you do manage to check off every box by the time you launch, your requirements might become obsolete shortly after (or even before) you go live. 

The result, of course, is a costly rework that sets your organization back.

Furthermore, marketers who choose this scenario often don’t have a plan for ongoing maintenance and upkeep. And if they’ve spent their entire budget on the project itself, they may find themselves unable to address problems that arise.

2. Invest in a Partial Web Dev Project to Address Specific Needs 

If your website is largely meeting your needs but you’re unhappy with certain aspects of it, you don’t necessarily need to spring for a complete rebuild or redesign. A partial website development project could do the trick.

This option allows you to:

• Fix or enhance specific aspects of your website (e.g. design or information architecture)
• See tangible deliverables (e.g. design templates, wireframes, mockups) more quickly
• Keep your project’s scope narrow and manageable (which can also make obtaining budgetary approval easier)
• Be agile and iterative without overtaxing your team

You can also pick and choose which parts of an overall website development project you have your web development partner help you with. For example, you could engage in a discovery phase to ensure your organization is aligned around your goals, handle the design internally, and then look to your agency partner to bring it all to life in development. This gives you flexibility to manage your cost and timeline depending on the capabilities and/or limitations you bring to the table.  

But it’s also important to be aware of the drawbacks of an ad hoc approach to website development. You could:

• Miss the opportunity to create a truly cohesive digital experience across multiple platforms and channels
• Lose the ability to maintain a macro view of your website as a whole 
• Uncover additional challenges and issues that require you to go back to your organization with piecemeal funding requests

Ultimately, a “fix the problem as it arises” mindset will only take your organization so far. Essentially, you wind up doing the same thing over and over as new issues arise, which can be costly and somewhat frustrating. To make your website the powerful marketing tool it can be, you can’t afford to set it and forget it. That’s why the next option takes a longer view.

3. Chart Out a Multi-Phased Project Containing Multiple End-to-End Website Initiatives and Consider Committing to Continuous Improvement

This option is essentially a combination of the scenarios we’ve covered so far — but with a twist. Here, the goal is not to achieve everything at once. Rather, you’ll establish a roadmap for your digital strategy as a whole and break it down into a series of end-to-end projects. Taking it a step further with continuous improvement, you’ll get the benefit of taking a holistic, big-picture look at your website strategy, your newly designed website is just the starting point — not the ultimate destination. 

With a phased approach you’d still engage in a discovery phase to align around your goals. But rather than tackling your visual design, information architecture, content strategy, user experience, and more at the same time, you can break it down into smaller pieces. 

This lets you revitalize and transform your website and all its related functions and features in a sustainable way. And it lets you get to the heart of each issue and reimagine all the business processes that accompany each one rather than implement a series of band-aid solutions.

With ongoing continuous improvement, you can still engage in all the phases of a website development project. But you also set future-focused goals for continued development and/or proactively put an ongoing service level agreement in place to keep your site functioning at peak performance. This allows you to respond to changing market conditions and ensure your site continually meets your organization’s evolving needs.

For example, you might:

• Identify a set of features (e.g. an e-commerce platform or custom integrations) that you want to incorporate down the road
• Launch a new information architecture but schedule ongoing user testing in order to tweak and optimize its performance
• Plan to integrate a CRM tool in a future year so data can automatically flow between it and your CMS 
• Align your website’s development and rollout with your organization’s overall strategic plan

With this approach, you can likely assume from the get-go that you’ll need funding for multiple phases — potentially spanning several fiscal years — which helps your organization plan accordingly. Furthermore, you can launch one project and test it before moving on to the next one, which enables you to incorporate ongoing learning and improve your outcomes.

This option is also attractive if you don’t yet know exactly what shape you want your overall web strategy to take — or if your funds are limited. You don’t have to figure it out (or pay for it) all at once. Instead, you can test, iterate, and progressively learn what works for your organization. You can even take an “MVP” (minimal viable product) approach, where you launch a project with a deliberately-modest scope that limits your investment while still delivering value. Whatever the initial project looks like, this long-term, incremental approach allows you to focus your financial investments on the areas with the greatest ROI. 

Take an Evolutionary — Rather Than Revolutionary — Approach to Website Development

Your organization is always changing, and the environment in which you operate is constantly shifting, too. That’s why it’s essential to take the long view when planning for your next website development project. 

Approaching your digital strategy through multiple phases and the lens of continuous improvement will ensure your website meets your organization’s and users’ evolving needs — now and for years to come. 

Ready to learn more? We’d love to hear from you.