So as a business we decided that we needed to expand our market position by introducing a web based offering.

Sounds simple, right?

We’ve all spent many hours on various websites over the years. Some are good, some are bad. So long as we get to the top of the google rankings, we will be fine. And that’s really easy, isn’t it?

After lots of informal coffee break conversations, we finally decide to get started on this project. The web is such an important part of everyone’s world these days, we have to embrace it and start to utilise it to further develop our business.

This however leads to more questions, more conversation….what do we want the site to do? Is it a brochure? Is it an extension of us as a business? How does it reflect our company ethos? What about our individual differences, we need to reflect those…do we need the site to take payments, what about social media, that’s important too, isn’t it?? And what about the web address that we want, we need to make sure people know what we do.

Ok, so we start to think this is maybe not just going to be a case of utilising one of those free web based services to create our own site. Sounds great, but in reality we are a business that prides itself on our professionalism, our integrity, and our individual service we provide to each and every one of our customers. An ‘off the shelf’ free site is going to do more harm than good and after all, we all know how quickly a reputation can be damaged.

Time to bring in the professionals! The team at Thrive have all the expertise we need, but further challenge us as a business to make sure we are happy and clear in the brief we provide them.

The first question to answer is what is our brand?? There is so much more that goes into developing a brand, and it certainly isn’t just a logo! As we became to understand though, it’s a crucial first step to developing a site that is a true reflection of us as a business.

We soon learned there would be no short cuts, that it was going to be a time consuming process and we all had to buy into it fully. But then again, it’s so important to get right, this was a good investment of time. For many customers, the web is now a first port of call, and the old adage that ‘first impressions last’ is certainly true. We are all absolutely on board that we must get this right from the start.

By working with professionals, we really got to understand what goes into developing a brand. It’s about colours, words, images. It’s about how we deal with our customers and how we want to be viewed. It’s about the markets we operate in and what sets us apart from our competitors. Its where we are now as a business and where we want to be in 5 years.

Workshops, questionnaires, homework, buyer personas, presentations, open discussion groups…it’s like being back at University! But the guys at Thrive spend the time needed with us to help us think about what we want from the site, to enable them to provide a service that really works for us.

One of the things Thrive said from the start was that bespoke imagery for the site is a must.

However, we focussed more on the content for the pages.  We divided the work up to allow people to write the pages allied to their areas of expertise, and began to get these ready to upload to the site. Meanwhile, Thrive were building the site, ready for the words and images to come from us.

More meetings followed, and we could begin to see the pages coming together. We were happy with the brand, the feel of the site. We played around with words. But still no images! We got some great client testimonials, and these show that the business has a lot of strengths. But in terms of getting the team, and key clients available for photos, on the same day, was a logistical nightmare!

But when we finally managed it, what a difference it made! We should have just trusted the professionals from the start…

All of a sudden the site felt real. We were nearly there. We were able to see the pages now on the site, to see how they flowed together, how the links between pages worked, the relative sizes of pictures, quotes and content. Again, the fact we were working with professionals meant we could utilise their software to make any tweaks needed, before it went live.

Final bits were bounced back and forth until we were ready to press the button and put ourselves further out there…..

Key things we have learned from building our website:

• Get professional help from the start, if at all possible
• Know your brand
• Bespoke images are crucial!

Now we just need to start getting people to the site, so that we can make it work for us!