An e-newsletter published by Tim Rosa Associates, LLC

February 2006 Vol. 3, No. 2

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Creating Web Content: The Bigger Picture

I recently conducted a project review with one of our healthcare clients on a website content development effort. This senior communications executive told me she was very impressed with our level of integrity, quality and timeliness of the work, and how we treated the budget allocated “like gold.” She concluded that she would “recommend TRA in a nanosecond without hesitation to her colleagues.”

As I was starting to feel flushed with pride, the other shoe dropped. “You know, Tim,” she said, “despite all this great work, there is room for improvement.”

“I am sure there is,” I said, “there is no perfect project. How can we improve next time?”

“You need to take a more holistic approach to website content development. In addition to delivering the content, it would be great if you could help clients like me understand more about what the entire website lifecycle looks like, where we go from here. That way, you are helping me understand what comes next and how we go forward. You are also adding value by demonstrating that you are not just a team of writers.”

The best advice about my business comes from listening to clients. The compliments are always appreciated, as they help us see where we’re doing well. Yet candid comments like these remind me of the need to continually take a step back, look at the bigger picture, and find ways to enhance our services.

Taking a Holistic Approach

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has been working on the web that there are many ways to develop websites and many differences of opinion about the best approach. In my experience, a typical website development project has four phases:

Phase I—Strategy
Phase II—Launch
Phase III—Sustain
Phase IV—Overhaul

In the Strategy phase, you have to think about “big picture” issues such as the website budget and launch date, your business goals for the website, the targeted audiences for the website, and whether you need outside resources to complement or supplement your internal team.

During the Launch phase, you need to put together a plan for creating and managing the content, developing the website’s look-and-feel, conducting usability testing, making sure that all elements of the backend IT infrastructure (the website’s “plumbing”) work together, and promoting the website to attract viewers.

Throughout the Sustain phase, you must devise ways to keep the content current and fresh so that visitors come to rely on your website as an essential source for something they need—products, services, or information. In this way, you demonstrate your company’s market and thought leadership, which creates ongoing goodwill with customers, helps qualify leads, and generates revenue.

At some point—based on factors such as market competition, a merger/acquisition, customer requests, or sheer boredom—you’ll enter the Overhaul phase. This will be the time to review how well your website is achieving its business goals, create new themes, and kick off the Strategy phase anew.

How Do You Move Forward?

Regardless of your own particular role and responsibilities on your next website project, I recommend you explore the information found in these helpful resources:

Our associates refer back to these resources frequently during website engagements. What I continually find most interesting, however, is the fact that most of these websites don’t provide a typical timeline for development. This is particularly ironic because the people responsible for developing websites are focused on content and quality, but those to whom they report are most interested in when the website is going to go live.

Based on dozens of completed website projects, I can offer this rule of thumb:

Phase	Percent of Time
Strategy	10%
Launch	50%
Sustain	20%
Overhaul	20%

Once you complete the Strategy phase, you can derive an approximate timeline based on the rubrics in the table. As my friend Steve says, “Double your money back, if you don’t like the advice.” But, at least I’ve given you a place to start.

Bottom Line

Developing effective websites is an effort that requires time, expertise, and resources. At Tim Rosa Associates, we have senior-level talent to cover all the phases in the website lifecycle. And, when we require additional resources, we count on our strategic business partners to help. According to a study conducted at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, researchers found that the brain makes decisions in just one 20th of a second of viewing a webpage (1). While there are many people, including me, who believe it seems impossible to make a decision like this in 50 milliseconds, the message is clear—your website won’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

¹ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4616700.stm

For More Information

Thanks for reading,

Founder and Manager
Tim Rosa Associates, LLC