Corporate Website Development: Full Guide in 14 Steps

• Corporate websites are not technically complex, but the volume of content to be produced will create complexities.
  
  
• Project management skills will be critical to delivering on time to budget.
  
  
• Producing a detailed requirements list and design brief is important to align suppliers to your project vision and mission.
  
  
• Setting performance and development standards is critical to setting supplier accountability and maintaining quality control.

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Corporate websites can be some of the most complex types of websites to develop and manage, not because of their technical nature, but because of the sheer volume of content, which creates a complex internal dynamic for corporate website owners in terms of delivering a high quality experience to Investors, Government Institutions, NGOs, Media Outlets, Local Communities, and Labor Markets.

The intention of this guide is to outline the corporate website development process and provide valuable insights for communications executives that have been tasked with the responsibility of planning, creating, and launching a new corporate website for their brand.

Whilst the stages of the process can vary by sector and business composition, we can generally consider the 14 steps of the corporate website development process to be: 1) Analysis, 2) Strategic Planning, 3) Internal Briefing, 4) Internal Consultation, 5) Requirements Capture & Definition, 6). Design Brief, 7) Supplier Consultation, 8) Design Creation, 9) Content Creation, 10) Coding, 11) Content Publishing, 12) Testing & Validation, 13) Launch, and 14) Maintenance & Updates.

Corporate Website Development Timeline

As with most projects, the key considerations are time and cost, and getting your project plan created and aligned with internal and external project participants will be critical to delivering your corporate website on time, and to budget.

The timeline presented above should be considered a realistic depiction of what actually happens on corporate website development projects, we can observe activities occurring simultaneously such as steps 4 to 6 and 8 to 12, it is too idealistic to presume all activities will occur in an orderly sequence of events one after the other.

The project is split into three key phases:

1. Project Setup (Steps 1 to 7)
   Laying the foundation of the project; undertaking the analysis, planning, and internal engagement necessary to gain buy-in and raise the required CAPEX. In addition to this we would always budget 3 to 4 weeks just to identify and legally contract design/development partners due to potential problems with the legal/approved supplier processes (step 7).
   
   
2. Core Build (Steps 8 to 12)
   The mainstay of the project; the design and creation of the website, populating it with content, and testing it to make sure it performs as required. The project can take anywhere from 3 to 4 months, however this could be extended dependant of internal resources and the amount of new content or experiences are to be created.
   
   
3. Launch & Follow-up (Steps 13 & 14)
   Setting site to live and implementing post launch checks and housekeeping; once the site is live, there will still be a number of activities to undertake.

In terms of producing the project plan, Disruptable use monday.com because it provides the required Gantt interface and advanced collaboration functionality, which ensures effective communication and task management. However there are many other collaboration and project management tools out there.

Corporate Website Development Process

Once a high level timeline has been provisionally set, you can start to work on the activities and documentation for each step of the corporate website development process, lets take a closer look at each step:

1. Analysis
2. Strategic Planning
3. Internal Briefing
4. Internal Consultation
5. Requirements Capture & Definition
6. Design Brief
7. Supplier Consultation
8. Design Creation
9. Content Creation
10. Coding
11. Content Publishing
12. Testing & Validation
13. Launch
14. Maintenance & Updates

Step 1: Analysis

Goal:
Create a data foundation for decision making and planning.

Activities:
Benchmarking, Site Analytics, Site Mapping, User/Stakeholder Mapping, Operational Analysis.

In starting your project, you need to build the rational to underpin what it is you plan to do/create, sound analysis will minimize the risk of mistakes and increase the probability that you create an experience that meets the needs of your users and internal stakeholders.

1.1 Benchmark and cherry pick from leading corporate presences

Determine where your current site is positioned in relation to your direct competition and the broader field of corporate brands implementing best practices, this will aid in setting goals and measuring the success of your project post launch. Use awards sites such as CSS Awards, Awwwards, and Webby Awards to identify the best practices and latest styles of corporate brands in general, as recognized by professionals in the web design and development industry. Aim to build to those standards.

Determine your benchmarking criteria and weightings across key elements such as above the fold utilization, nav structure, mega navs, section pages (or not), usability, media centers, the investor relations experience, contact approach, content formats, page speed and Web.Dev scores (see step 11).

1.2 Site Analytics

Identify the most and least popular sections and pages in terms of sessions and users, internal perceptions are usually quite different to the reality so this will help you prioritize content by interest, however be careful as organizational priorities are not always based on the size of audience.

It is critical that you relate the investment in sections of the site to the level of value generated, and analytics can also aid you in apportioning accountability to internal departments and control the amount of effort/resources invested in sections of the website.

Identifying and reporting regularly on key performance metrics will help in setting the post launch targets that you can use to communicate demonstrable improvement. Key metrics include bounce rates, popular content, session times, user volumes, traffic sources, popular sections/pages, exit pages etc.

1.3 Site Mapping

Mapping out your site structure and how it relates to your users is an extremely valuable process that will help you and your internal stakeholders conceptualize what content needs to be created, retained, refined, or deleted.

We also recommend you map out the site structure in the form of Information Architecture diagrams to identify relationships between content, data, and users to identify areas for improvement.

Designers and developers will also require this information.

1.4 Operational Analysis

When starting a new project, it is always worthwhile undertaking an operational analysis to ensure your infrastructure is in good health. Within the context of the website, consider the current management structure, the level of skills and participation of internal stakeholders, if the company values the digital channel (budget as a percentage of total communications budget), what systems are employed, company approach to open source frameworks, analytics reporting channels, content programs and so on.

There are many models you can employ to analyze the digital operation related to your corporate website, we employ our own proprietary Disruptable™ models in addition to mainstream techniques such as McKinsey 7S and SWOT to identify problems and areas for improvement.

Step 2: Strategic Planning

Goal:
Make decisions and formulate a plan for dissemination within your organization.

Activities:
Communicate project vision, value proposition, goals, key activities and timing, milestones, resource allocation and responsibilities.

Once you have undertaken the initial analysis and internal consultation, you have the information necessary to formulate a detailed plan of action, set goals and allocate resources, this information will also be used to sell the project internally and gain approval for the Capital Expenditure (CapEx) in step 3.

We recommend you build the plan using presentation software such as PowerPoint or Keynote so that you can reconstitute the information depending on the audience you will be communicating it to e.g. Senior Executives for buy-in, CEO for sign-off, project participants for delegation of responsibility etc.

2.1 Summary of Key Issues

In starting your plan, it is important to set the context, and you should do this by summarizing the information you have collated from the analysis and internal consultation in the form a “key Issues”, include a SWOT analysis for visual presentation.

It is also important to present the results of the benchmarking analysis to demonstrate best practices and design styles that you believe set a marker for what you would like to achieve.

2.2 Vision & Goals

What is it you are seeking to achieve on your project?

For example:

“To develop a contemporary, content rich corporate experience with advanced functionalities that satisfy the communication needs of key stakeholder groups, packaged in a website that complements the brand and performs to high technical standards and best practices.”

2.3 Mission Statement

Your project mission statement will give project members a focus for working towards a common goal, increasing both the quality and the project working experience.

Your mission statement should give the “What,” “Why” and “How” of your project in very simple language. This means the statement needs to identify the project’s goal or vision (What), state why that need should be filled (Why), and give a brief description of the methods you will employ to accomplish that goal (How).

2.4 Value Proposition

Your website needs to tell visitors in a couple of sentences or less why your business is the best choice for the visitor, instead of sending a many different messages that in all likelihood won’t be received or correlated to the value the website offers them i.e. key messages.

There are a number of methods you can use such as the value proposition canvas to relate the features and benefits of your website to the needs, wants, or fears of your users.

2.5 Key Activities and Timing

Building upon the high level timeline outlined at the start of this guide, you can proceed to insert the detail of all the subtasks of each stage, and by when they need to be completed to reach the overall launch deadline.

The suppliers of design and coding, and your internal technical team will be required to fill out the design/development cycle and migration to the hosted environment with tasks based on their perceptions of the work involved, and considering the requirements list. You can integrate the timing into your detailed timeline once you have recruited your design and development partner (see step 7).

At this point you should also refer back to your analysis and initial internal consultation to build out a content development plan, setting tasks and deadlines for the internal team.

2.6 Milestones

The key to mastering the corporate website development process is identifying and sticking to the critical path of the project, in this instance, the key milestones we utilize are; 1) Documentation: Design Brief & Requirements List, 2) Supplier Acquisition 3) Delivery of Design, 4) Delivery of CMS, 5) Content Publishing, 6) Testing & Validation, and 7) Go Live.

The project cannot advance to the subsequent stage until each milestone is completed.

2.7 Resource Allocation

When we look at resource allocation, we are referring to the required internal human resources, and the suppliers of design, coding, content, and hosting relative to their respective levels of financial investment.

It is worth reviewing previous website projects to ascertain a working budget for suppliers and managed services, this will be highly subjective and dependent on the level of quality you are seeking from designers, developers, and hosting.

If you are arbitrarily set a budget by management, working through these elements in reverse will ultimately determine the types of suppliers and what content/functionalities are viable. You may have to trade off supplier reputation to build out more functionality or content.

The content plan will create a large variable based on what you agree with internal stakeholders to develop (See step 4). More rich content and functionality will increase time and cost.

TIP:
Always factor in a contingency as part of the overall budget in case of new opportunities and unforeseen issues, we recommend somewhere between 10% and 20% of the initial “objective versus task” value.

2.8 Responsibilities

Now we know what needs to be done and by when, we need to determine who will do it, and mapping out the project team will clarify this for you and them.

You may have an internal IT account manager for your department who will be responsible for supporting the creation of the technical requirements (see step 5), making decisions on where the site will be hosted and by whom, what frameworks are permitted under company policy (e.g. no open source), domain name management, and moving the site to the live hosted environment, a financial representative or procurement specialist to manage payments and agree contracts with external suppliers, content delivery project manager likely yourself, you will have content stakeholders responsible for approving, delivering, and publishing their respective content (see step 11), designers to generate new graphics and videos, and website designers and coders (external suppliers) to produce the new corporate website’s look and feel and Content Management System (CMS).

Ensuring these team members understand their respective roles and responsibilities will ensure effective and efficient delivery of your project.

It is important you engage senior management of the respective functions to provisionally agree participation and by whom within their respective business functions (also see step 4).

Step 3: Internal Briefing

Goal:
Communicate Plan, Obtain buy-in / ratify project plan.

Activities:
Engage internal decision makers.

It is important to sell your plan to internal decision makers and justify the level of CapEx. This briefing document/presentation, which is made up of your strategic plan, is usually reserved for the senior executives of differing functions of the business, and today it is ever more common that the CEO will require a direct briefing due to the importance of the digital experience and level of investment.

Manage the expectations of your key internal stakeholders by building in a cycle of regular progress reporting and updates during implementation and as you progress through the steps in this guide.

It is also worth adding at this point you should be considering an internal communication plan to let the company know your project is active, and to manage the expectations of key internal stakeholders groups.

Step 4: Internal Consultation

Goal:
Agree what content and potential functionality is desired across stakeholder groups.

Activities:
Internal Stakeholder Workshops.

Identifying and appointing stakeholder representatives to become owners of individual sections of your website is critical to creating accountability for the accuracy and relevance of content published on your website during the project, and post launch. If there is an error or inaccuracy, it is their responsibility.

Undertaking workshops with these formal members of the project will help you help them to consider what content and functionality they must have (core), what they would like to have (desired), and what is not required (defunct), versus time and cost.

The output of workshops will lay the foundation for the type of experience you will create i.e. what content and features could/will be included in the technical requirements documentation.

TIP:
Work with Human Resources to formalize ownership/responsibility by integrating it into Job Descriptions and Performance Appraisals for both functional VPs/Directors and their lower level staff.

Step 5: Requirements Capture & Definition

Goal:
Capture and define technical requirements (website and content functionality).

Activities:
Creation of requirements document for prospective suppliers of corporate website design and development.

Defining the functional requirements for the website is one of the most important documents to be created on the project. In partnership with the design brief, it forms the basis for which all functionality and features will be developed during the coding stage, sets the desired level of operating performance, and it will be referred to when signing off the website at the end of the project.

Build your requirements list in a spreadsheet including these column headers amongst others:

Category | Functionality Name | Description | Satisfied When | Priority Level | Delivery Date | Status

Your technical supplier will likely offer the requirements capture and definition as part of their service for an additional cost, and regardless of you undertaking this step or them, they will have to walk through this list with you to affirm what is required of them, however we recommend you undertake this activity internally to save on cost and to reaffirm that you know exactly what it is you want to create.

Let’s take a look at some common examples of the key categories to be included:

5.1 CMS/Framework

There are many factors that can influence the CMS/framework you are going to employ, including company policy for open source, server OS, developer capabilities etc. Based on these multiple variables, it is important to specify at this point so that your potential development partners can demonstrate experience of working with your desired platform in advance.

Here is a list of the  top 10 most popular CMS’.

For a modern corporate website, we recommend a  self-hosted WordPress solution as we believe it more than caters for the technical and marketing requirements in almost all corporate scenarios. It has a great developer community, it offers many plugins that are now mature and robust, it has endless customization options, light base themes that are SEO optimized, it is secure as long as it is set up correctly, almost all hosting providers offer dedicated WordPress solutions, and training staff how to use WordPress for editing and publishing is relatively straight forward.

5.2 Mobile Version

Whilst it seems obvious, it is too important to leave it to chance, specify the requirement and what model you will utilize (Mobile-Dedicated, Responsive, or Adaptive), or at least specify that it is to be confirmed based on advice from the developer.

Today a responsive website using customized CSS is the most common method for mobile optimization, however there is justification for the other models based on website purpose and function.

5.3 Browser Compatibility

Specify what browsers the site will be optimized for (cross-browser compatibility) e.g. Chrome, Safari, Edge, etc. and their respective level of priority, to ensure valid coding and consistent representation of the design (Mobile & Desktop).

TIP:
Check your analytics to see most common browsers and devices to justify your cross-browser compatibility decisions.

5.4 Hosting

As with CMS selection, your company policy will determine whether you host the corporate website either internally or with an external provider, and what server OS’ will be determined by the CMS/framework you specify.

Examples of leading hosting providers include AWS, DigitalOcean, Linode, Microsoft Cloud, Google Cloud, and Alibaba cloud amongst many others.

5.5 3rd Party Scripts

There are a number of third party scripts you will need to implement for the purpose of Analytics, Advertising, Remarketing, Search Tools, Social Embeds etc.

Some common examples include a Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Adobe Marketing Cloud, Search Consoles (Google & Bing), Facebook Pixel, Twitter Streams, Facebook “Like Page” etc.

Specify and generate the appropriate scripts in plain text files in advance for the developers, you will be notified in the specific application once verification is complete.

5.6 Content / Features / Widgets

Building upon the workshops that you undertook with internal stakeholders, identified best practices, and your own ideas, it is important to specify the new and legacy functionality that is to be developed or retained.

This could include job listings, investor conference calls/live streams, stock tickers, annual report archives, press release archives, image libraries, related links, related posts, maps, contact forms, videos (using social or players), interactive applications etc.

5.7 3rd Party Plugins

Depending on what framework you are going to employ, additional system customizations such as workflow management, SEO, contact forms, image optimization, URL customization and redirects, minification of JavaScript and CSS, Content Distribution Networks (CDN) etc. can be specified based on what you identify within the requirements categories above.

At this point it is important to specify the plugins you know of or are recommended, and create a criteria for acceptance, such as their impact on page loading speed i.e. that they are light or add don’t add many unnecessary scripts.

5.8 Search Optimization & Compliance

It is recommended that you separate out the search aspect of technical requirements from others in this list because they are fundamentally important to developing a website to best practice performance standards, whilst also ensuring compliance with a key source of organic traffic. Comply at launch, not retrospectively and you will save significant amounts of time and money.

TIP:
Many designers and developers by default will not include or recommend search optimizations within their proposals, therefore it is critical that you do.

We actively configure the website to be aligned to approximately 50 “onsite” search signals and this includes measures such as XML Site Maps (General and Articles/Posts), H tags, Canonical scripts, correct URL redirects protocol, meta data, Https, page speed/performance, Web.Dev standards etc.

5.9 Security

As with all websites and applications, security is a fundamental requirement, it is recommended that you work with, and apportion responsibility to, an internal IT representative to ensure all aspects of security are covered and that your IT department owns the associated risks.

Themes and issues include protection against brute force attacks on you CMS user login (commonly attacked), protection against DDoS attacks, .config file protection, reputable hosting providers with added layers of security, certificates for Https etc.

5.10 Testing, Validation, and Performance

All of the items that you have specified in this requirements list require checking and sign-off to agree that they have been fulfilled, with the completion of each item leading up to your overall sign-off of the project after testing and validation.

Each item will have criteria “satisfied when…”, and represented in a separate column of the list.

In addition to the testing and validation process for each item, it is recommended that you set an overall development standard for the project to act as a quality control mechanism.

We would normally utilize the four categories from Google’s Lighthouse project which can be found as part of Google’s Web.Dev initiative and as previously mentioned in the benchmarking guidance notes from the analysis stage.

We will go into more detail on 1) Performance, 2), Accessibility, 3) Best Practices, and 4) SEO standards in step 11 (Testing & Validation).

TIP:
Link final payments in the contracts/Statements of Work (SOW) to the satisfaction of these requirements once testing has been completed in live hosted environment, not only the development environment.

Step 6: Design Brief

Goal:
Communicate your design requirements.

Activities:
Creation of briefing document for prospective suppliers of corporate website design and development.

Bring your analysis and plans together within the design brief so that you can effectively communicate what exactly it is that you’re seeking to achieve and why to prospective suppliers (see step 7).

It will open up your options of the potential suppliers that you could work with beyond the incumbent agencies that “know your business” and make the process of reviewing and selecting the right proposal and quotation more effective due to the accuracy and relevance of tender documents.

Key briefing components within the context of a new corporate website bring together content from the previous steps and should include:

6.1 Vision & Goals

What is it you are seeking to achieve from your project? Include the vision and goals from your strategic plan.

6.2 Mission Statement

Your designers and developers are going to be project team members, include your mission statement from your strategic plan in step 2 so that at a high level, they clearly understand what you’re aiming to achieve, why you have the need for this project, and how you plan to achieve the vision and goals for the project.

6.3 Value Proposition

Provide guidance on what the purpose of the website is i.e. what needs, of what groups it aims to satisfy. (See Value Proposition Mapping in step 2).

6.4 Brand Guidelines

Provide summary information related to the DNA of your brand, it is recommended that you attach additional corporate branding documents where appropriate.

Outline mechanical information such as palette and dimensions for the logo and communication materials.

You may wish to include corporate communication plans that have been edited/simplified to ensure sensitive information is not released; one could assume that it would include Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (STP) information.

6.5 Stakeholder Map & User Personas

Present your stakeholder mapping and priorities from the analysis in step 1, optionally you may wish to request that the designers create and present the User Personas if you are not comfortable creating them yourself.

6.6 Proposed Site Map

Create and present the layout of the navigation of your site based on your internal stakeholder workshops, edited to present new sections, pages/content or omit those to be deleted.

6.7 Summary of Benchmarking

Present the findings of your benchmarking analysis and include screen grabs for both desktop and mobile versions of sample corporate websites to illustrate what you like, and why.

This will help the designers envisage a creative direction from the outset.

6.8 Design Requirements: Creation & Review

Finally, outline exactly what will be required from the designers in step 8. This is extremely important for prospective agencies to accurately create and cost a proposal for work. Consider the following phases of 1) Templates, 2) Wireframes, 3) Design Concepts, 4) Final Design, and 5) Site Identity Guide

Phase 1: Summary of Templates Required

At this point, it is recommended that you consider the volume of templates (distinctly different page layouts) that you will require, working down through the navigational structure from the homepage, section pages, subsection pages (optional),, to standard content pages, adding any special bespoke pages/experiences that you wish to create. The designers you hire, will ultimately finalize the templates with you at the start of the design stage.

For example the Investor Relations section or Media Center may require distinctly different page layouts/designs (within the overall site design) due to the high levels of functionality you plan to present.

Phase 2: Wireframes Required

Having specified in general terms, the templates required for each of the differing levels of the navigation and page types, it is important that the designers create the wireframes (AKA Page Schematics or Screen Blueprints), which are visual representations of a user interface (Desktop & Mobile views), stripped of any visual design or branding elements.

Wireframes are used by UX Designers to define the hierarchy of items on a screen/page and communicate what the items on that page should be, based on user needs, without being influenced or distracted by the front-end appearance.

Phase 3: Design Concepts Required

It is important to determine the volume of concepts that you require for review, this will ultimately affect the price that prospective agencies present to you.

It is common place to request x3 initial versions for a group of specified sample pages: The homepage, a section page (investor relations, sustainability, CSR, or Media Center), and basic content page. You can negotiate the exact terms here through dialogue when reviewing the initial tender documents, prior final agency selection.

Usually agencies will follow a process of proposing different designs and then reducing them down to a final proposal based on your review and feedback, optionally, at the start of this process provide creative freedom by requesting them to include a wildcard, one that ignores the preferences/tastes highlighted in the briefing document but respects core requirements.

Phase 4: Final Design Required

Once you have refined down the initial concepts to a final design, it is recommended that you gain final buy in from the internal review panel.

Upon sign-off the designers can complete the creation of the designs for all templates and prepare the packaging of designs for delivery to the coding team in the format of .PSD files or as specified by the coders.

Phase 5: Site Identity Guide

As a final output of the design process, it is important to specify that the supplier provides an identity guide to outline what templates are available and for what types of pages, included in the guide should be mechanical information such as page dimensions, fonts, heading formats, image dimensions, and additional formatting features.

At a later date, you can add to this document with a comprehensive user manual, which you can specify in addition to the identity guide or create it yourself so that you possess sufficient internal documentation to support your digital asset.

Step 7: Supplier Consultation

Goal:
Engage and recruit external partner(s) for corporate website design and development.

Activity:
Issue design brief and requirements list for tender to a shortlist of prospective suppliers, review proposals, select partner, and agree terms.

Whilst your current incumbent marketing/communications/digital agency will most likely be at the top of your list as a prospective partner, you may wish to work with alternative suppliers to increase the quality of your project, its prestige, or reduce risks of a negative output.

At this point issuing your requirements and briefing documents from steps 5 and 6 to prospective suppliers will seek to validate their skills and experience, and justify the financial investment they quote you. You will be able to analyze proposals “like for like” to determine where the most value and least risk resides.

You should be aware that once you have reviewed and agreed a supplier, it can take upwards of a month for the Statement of Work (SOW), payment structure, and legal contracts to be agreed between your company and the supplier(s). Your procurement and legal representatives should manage this process for you.

Step 8: Design

Goal:
Create and sign-off new front-end design.

Activities:
Wireframing, Design Concepts, and Design Sign-off.

Now we start the core build phase of the project and as depicted within the design brief creation (see 6.8), you should work with your designers to an agreed schedule for 1) Templates, 2). Wireframing, 3) Design Concepts, and 4) Final Design to formulate and agree the look and feel of your new corporate website (desktop and mobile versions).

You should build a small review panel made up of key company people such as communications executives, the CEO, or other key figures. You can present the concepts to gauge opinions and preferences and feedback to the designers.

Optionally/recommended, engage website users to conduct primary research and/or UX analysis for deeper testing and revision such as eye tracking for discoverability of content and the effectiveness of navigation models, or simply opinion research.

Step 9: Content Creation

Goal:
Collate/produce the required information and data.

Activities:
Determine Content (new, retained, and deleted), work with internal stakeholders, and content creators/agencies to produce text, images, videos, data for applications etc.

It is important to start creating content as early as possible in the project to avoid a bottleneck at the point the CMS is released to you by the developer for content publishing (see step 11).

At the point that you have completed your strategic plan and internal consultation, it is possible to begin activities to create content to populate the pages that you defined in your site mapping.

However you will also be required to wait until you have the final design signed-off so that you are clear on graphics specifications.

We recommend you employ a collaboration platform for your project generally and specifically for your content creation to effectively manage the process and increase productivity, Disruptable utilize monday.com.

Step 10: Coding

Goal:
Integrate design with new or legacy framework/CMS.

Activities:
Configure CMS, Create Templates, Develop new/migrate existing functionality, satisfy functional requirements.

Once you sign-off the design, the website designers will pass on the relevant files to the coding team. At this point, your requirements document from step 5 becomes central to project management and fulfilment.

The development team will provide a detailed timeline related to the requirements list for the build, customizations, and any on page features.

Once the templates have been integrated into the CMS, it is likely you can start to build and publish the pages.

Step 11: Content Publishing

Goal:
Populate the new website CMS and widgets with content and data.

Activities:
Create pages with assigned templates, add media (text, images, video, documents etc.), name URLs, and add metadata, add data sheets to widgets.

As a first step, you need to create the structure of your site however it is likely that the coders will have configured the site structure to include sections and perhaps some subsections so that the navigation is visibly present in the development site for preview, otherwise you will have to add/import in each page URL then select the appropriate template and page title.

Now that you have access to the CMS, it is important to train your teams on how to use the system and create a page, systems such as WordPress usually require 3 to 6 hours of hands-on training to get users up to sufficient knowledge, followed by coaching as they learn through implementation.

TIP:
In addition to the site identify guide, provide a page creation “crib sheet” that outlines the process in a logical sequence of events so that users have a quick reference guide and check list.

Utilize your content creation archive (see step 9) to systematically create each section and its pages working through the site to add in page titles, metadata, text, images, videos, audio files, links, and downloadable documents. Once pages are completed, their status should be set “for review” so that you can then systematically check ALL pages prior to approval for publishing.

Step 12: Testing & Validation

Goal:
Transition from development to live hosted environment.

Activities:
Test hosting, CMS, customizations, and page functionality, validate against quality control standards, and optimize for performance.

As the site is being developed, your coding team should undertake regular review meetings as the functionalities are completed or presented for preview, create a “Snagging” column in the requirements list to help you manage all of the required actions and resolution activities.

Once you have completed the publishing process, your technical team will prepare to move the site from the development environment to the desired hosted environment, at this point it is important that all aspects of the website are double checked once in the live environment and on a temporary domain/IP.

As mentioned in the requirements section (see step 5) it is important to set quality control development standards for your project to validate the build prior to sign-off and launch, ensuring you deliver a well-designed user experience and technically competent corporate website.

We recommend you utilize the standards set out in Google’s open project Web.Dev: 1) Performance, 2) Accessibility, 3) Best Practices, and 4) SEO, and it is critical that you test a sample group of key pages from across the website, we would test >50 pages including the homepage, section pages, bespoke pages and standard pages (Mobile & Desktop versions). You should repeat this process once the site goes live and is pointed to your real domain.

Go to Web.Dev then 1) Test URL, 2) Run Audit, and 3) Click “View Report” for detailed diagnostics beyond the initial summary.

Let’s take a closer look at the standards:

12.1 Performance

This critical audit looks at page speed metrics like first paint and time to interactive to determine lag.

It is easier, and much more cost effective to optimize for page speed prior to launch, than it is to retrofit a website post launch, and there are multiple benefits of a fast loading website to your organization and your website’s users.

We recently wrote extensively about the importance of page speed and how it affects the user experience and SEO, check it out to familiarize yourself with the key issues.

Focus the attention of your team on the metrics that will define success/gain approval, and include the tools by which you will measure the metrics. It is recommended that you use both Google Page Speed Insights and GTmetrix to measure and debug your site.

Guidance target scores for these metrics, with a priority placed on mobile results are:

Google PageSpeed Insights:

Mobile Score	>90
Desktop Score	>90

GTMetrix:

PageSpeed Score	>90
YSlow Score	>90
Total Page Size	100-500KB
Fully Loaded Time	<2 Seconds
Requests	<88

12.2 Accessibility

This audit checks for common issues that may prevent users from accessing your content.

Providing fair and equal access to your web presence for all types of users including those with disabilities using alternative browsing technologies is an extremely important aspect of website development, and in many countries Disability Discrimination Acts affecting the physical and virtual presences of a brand, are written into law.

You can work to the accreditation standards of the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and in certain cases this may be a legal or corporate requirement, however this can on occasion be a time-consuming aspect of a project therefore it may be advisable to default to the Google standard, which in many cases provides for a more than acceptable build standard if the WAI is not required.

You should aim to score on average >90

3. Best Practices

This audit will look at your websites general configuration/set-up from HTTPS usage to correct image aspect ratios.

You should aim to score on average >90

Another valuable auditing tool to be utilized is WebPageTest which provides useful insights into security, CDN employed, waterfall analysis, time to first byte, image compression, and chacheing.

4. SEO

This audit will run checks for best practices to ensure your site is discoverable, we also term this as Search Engine Compliance (SEC).

It is likely your developer will not include search compliance activities without being prompted by you, and this is why it is important to have a dedicated section within the requirements list to ensure compliance from launch.

You should aim to score on average >90

Step 13: Launch

Goal:
Make website publicly visible.

Activities:
Configure the DNS of your domain to point at your web server.

It is most likely that your internal IT team will manage this part of the process for you, and update the Domain Name System (DNS) records with the information from your website’s server.

And that’s it, the change is very quick however it takes about 48 hours for the whole world to have the updated DNS and depending on how the information propagates throughout the internet, some people could even see the new site before you do.

We also recommend that you confirm internally that the website has been launched but wait for 24 to 48 hours to promote its presence (a soft launch) so that you are able to undertake some final checks and testing prior to any influx of traffic that publicity will generate. You should also maintain vigilance throughout the following 7 to 14 days as the site beds in.

TIP:
Make sure you delegate responsibility to your IT team early in the planning of the project to ensure that they are prepared in advance (see 2.8)

Step 14: Maintenance & Updates

Goal:
Maintain website to original standards.

Activities:
Keep systems and software updated, monitor performance.

Whilst now your new corporate website has been launched, there will also be a number of housekeeping activities that you will need to perform in the immediate period following launch, and then in general month to month, year to year.

Conclusion

So that’s it, as you can see, developing a corporate website is not as easy as at first it may seem, but hopefully this guide can help you consider stakeholder needs (internally and externally) and how your engagement with them is critical, understand key project management issues and techniques, and how you can manage your suppliers effectively to deliver a new, technically competent corporate website with a rewarding experience for its users.

If you are planning on developing a new corporate presence and feel like you need some support, please get in touch for a free consultation.