Website planning
Website planning consultancy.
To perform well, there are literally 100s of considerations that need to go into the planning of your website.
It’s no longer enough to put together a 20-page site and wait for it to rank in the search. Our friends over at HubSpot suggest that the initial design and build of your site represent only 25% of what you should be doing online.
The good news is that you don’t have to do everything at once, but if you don’t have a plan in place for each stage of your website, it’s very easy to overlook important stuff.
Failing to plan your website properly…
Is planning to build a website that fails.
Websites are complicated projects – website planning is crucial. Even a simple brochure site takes time and resources to get right.
You might be considering a simple website, with 10 or so pages – but you’ve still got a lot of stuff to think about:
- The site map and content structure
- Page titles
- Focus keywords that you want to rank for
- The text content for each page (optimised for the search engines)
- Images for each page (and their ALT tags)
- Internal links
- Navigation structure
- Forms
The stages of a website planning project.
It’s important to approach each stage of a website project in turn.
If you dive into the next stage before the previous one is approved and signed off, you will end up with a website that’s a patchwork of constant changes.
Research
The crucial and all-important stage of any website project. If you’ve already got a site or are starting a new one, there are lots of things to do during the website planning process. These can include:
- Content research
- Market research
- Competitor research
- Keyword research
- Social media research
- Current site benchmarking (if you have one)
The research stage of the project should give you an overview of where you currently are, what your competitors are doing and how you plan to get where you want to be.
Without this information, there’s no real benchmark for the new site – how are you going to measure success?
Planning and decisions
Some stuff you’ll know, other stuff you’ll need to make best-guess decisions until the new site is up and you’re getting data. The planning stages can include:
- Persona planning
- User Journeys
- User experience
- Content preparation
- Image planning
- SEO planning
- Landing pages
- Calls-to-action
- Conversion tracking
- CRM
- Identifying ROI
That’s a short list, but it covers off a lot of ground. Luckily, we have a website planning template that will help you make sure all the planning gets done and properly influences the design and build stages.
We often find that it’s best to plan all this stuff on paper initially – notes and big ideas that can then be processed down into final plans.
Preparation
Whatever apps you use, something collaborative is essential when planning a website. It can often be useful to put together a website planning guide for everyone involved in the project, along with a website planning worksheet or checklist so everyone can see where you are and what’s been done to date.
We recommend apps such as Google Apps and Basecamp for the planning stages of a web project – this means you only have one copy of each doc or spreadsheet, everything is tracked and in the cloud, and you avoid having lots of copies of files pinging around via email.
We generally create all the required planning templates in Google Docs and then help our clients fill in the blanks.
Whatever the size of the site, it’s worth a quick chat.
If you are considering a new website or redesigning an existing one, it’s worth having a quick chat with our web team to see how we can help you.
We’ve developed several different routes – from Workshops and meetings to self-serve process and project templates that we can share with you.
Website planning and consultation FAQs
What does your website planning service include?
Our website planning service covers everything that needs to be in place before a single page is designed or a line of code is written. This includes a discovery session, content planning, sitemap development, functional requirements, data architecture, and wireframing – the full blueprint for a site that works.
Why do I need a planning phase – can’t we just get started?
Skipping planning is one of the most common and costly mistakes in web projects. Without a clear plan, designs get built around the wrong content, functionality gets missed, and budgets spiral. A well-planned project runs faster, smoother, and delivers a better result.
How long does the planning phase take?
For most projects, the planning phase takes two to four weeks. Larger or more complex sites with significant functionality requirements may take longer. We won’t rush this stage – getting it right here saves time and money everywhere else.
Do you help with content strategy during planning?
Yes. We’re a content-first agency, which means we plan the site around what you need to say, not the other way around. We’ll work with you to define the content required for every page and advise on what needs to be written, rewritten, or created from scratch.
What is a sitemap and why does it matter?
A sitemap is a structured map of every page on your site and how they relate to each other. It’s the foundation of good information architecture and ensures your content is organised in a way that makes sense for both users and search engines.
What are wireframes and will I see them?
Wireframes are structural layouts of your key pages, showing where content, navigation, and functional elements will sit – without any visual design applied. Yes, you’ll review and sign off on wireframes before we move to design. They’re one of the most important tools we use for getting everyone aligned.
Can planning help reduce the overall cost of my website project?
Absolutely. A clear scope and solid plan means fewer surprises, fewer revisions, and fewer late-stage changes. Clients who invest in proper planning almost always save money over the course of the full project.
What do you need from us to get started?
To begin the planning phase, it helps to have a clear sense of your business goals, your target audience, any existing brand materials, and an idea of the functionality you need. If you’re not sure about some of these, don’t worry – part of our discovery process is helping you work that out.
Is the planning deliverable something we could take to another agency?
Yes. Everything we produce during the planning phase – sitemaps, wireframes, functional specifications, and content plans – belongs to you once our invoice is settled. If you ever need to take the project elsewhere, you’ll have everything you need.
