Advanced
How To Guides
Developing your first website
3.
Develop a Brief for your Website
A tender document or RFT (Request for Tender) sets out
the objectives for the site and how these can best be
achieved. Ideally this would be supplied to three website
development companies so that you can accurately estimate
the cost of the development and ultimately appoint a
supplier (who may not be the cheapest but must offer
the best overall proposition for your business) Spending
time on the brief in the short term will save time and
money in the long term, as it will provide the developer
with a clear understanding of the requirements.
The brief should contain:
- A
summary version of your Website Strategy Document
which is suitable to be seen by external suppliers.
- A
description of the business sector and a short outline
concerning any important issues specific to that
industry.
-
An outline of the internal resources that will be
allocated to work with the supplier e.g.. who is
the internal contact point and what are his/her
skills?
-
The specific objectives for the site. These should
be concise and realistic.
-
The specific target audience for this development
- Any
requirements you may have in relation to developing
content?
- How
many design concepts do you want to see? Three is
usual.
- Will
a writer/content facility be required so that you
can keep the site up-to-date internally without
external support and if so, which elements of the
site will this apply to?
- A
detailed description of the functionality required
e.g. Will the web site facilitate online transactions,
reply forms, search queries, dynamically created
pages with a database backend?
-
Will your company require mailing lists and bulletin
boards?
-
How many rounds of changes will you be allowed make
to the site in development within the quoted cost?
Two rounds of minor changes is typical
-
What are the benchmarks and the critical deadlines
for site construction?
-
What arrangements does the supplier propose for
maintenance/technical support and what are the related
costs?
-
Do you want your company to own the copyright of
the content/design/coding - as you must specify
this and this is a crucial point Ref the Advanced
How To Guide on eBusiness
Legal Requirements
- Your
hosting and domain name requirements
-
A request for reference sites in a similar industry
to the company
-
A request for the supplier to provide a detailed
cost submission that will indicate costs and proposed
resources in terms of managing the project, designing
the site, the building of the site, the technologies
employed, expected training requirements if any,
search engine optimisation costs, hosting costs
and any other third party costs which may be incurred
e.g. photography and implementation costs as well
as the ongoing maintenance and hosting costs if
they are going to host your web-site
In
writing your specification, do consider clearly the
various options available with website developments.
For most existing Irish businesses, it may be advisable
not to have an online shopping facility on your first-ever
website however if you do choose this route - if you
sell to consumers for example - then familiarise yourself
with shopping carts and online payment options as you
will have to be clear on this in order to select a suitable
vendor.
Online shopping
An on-line shop should reproduce the experience of shopping
in a supermarket. When you buy over the counter, you
go into the shop, you pick out your purchases, you place
them in a shopping basket and when you've made your
decision, you pay for them.
This is mimicked on a website by:
-
Going to the shopping area on the site and browsing
or searching through the web catalogue.
-
Putting your choices into "the shopping cart",
a piece of software which keeps a record of your
purchases and,
-
Paying for your purchases, most commonly by credit
card, which will involve giving your credit card
details and personal information on-line.
All
this information has to be protected by encryption,
which prevents unauthorised people from accessing this
information.
Payment Solutions:
On-line transactions allow the customer to buy directly
from you over the web. The most common payment method
at the moment is by credit card using the same process
as telephone transactions. Of course, it is perfectly
possible for a company which normally invoices its customers
the end of each month, to accept online orders using
the shopping cart facilities described above while continuing
to bill the customers with a monthly paper invoice.
This will obviate the need for installing a payment
system and more importantly, will avoid having to pay
the credit card commission on your sales.
To set up a credit card payment system on your website
you need:
- A
bank that will establish an Internet merchant account
for you
- Payment
processing software to transfer the credit card
details between your bank and website
-
A secure certificate to encrypt and protect the
credit card details
Your
ISP and your bank will determine which types of software
you will need to carry out secure transactions.
Alternatively you can use a third-party supplier who
that already has this infrastructure set-up and simply
takes a commission on payments.
Further details on "Setting up an Online Payments
System is given in Appendix I
Supplier
Selection
When the suppliers revert with a written proposal,
ideally you should be able to have a presentation
from each one outlining their approach, costs, timescales
etc. Check out the Advanced "How To" Guide
on Choosing
eBusiness Vendors and Software.
Ideally one person in your company should be allocated
responsibility and act as the project manager to liaise
with the chosen supplier
Do
you have the resources in-house or will you hire an
outside developer? Can certain parts of the work be
done in-house and others outsourced? What budget have
you allocated?
In
terms of budget, remember to budget for all potential
costs such as ISP (Internet Service Provider) initial
and ongoing charges, website design and development,
staff training. Domain name registration and ongoing
maintenance, technical support and marketing of the
site. You may need to purchase and install new computer
equipment and software and to invest in Reporting
facilities and search engine optimisation
Once
you do appoint a supplier, you are now going down
the online road and your business must be comfortable
with using the Internet ...
|
