Five things to share with us in a brief to get the website you want

By Liz

Photo by @bamagal

We have always found that the most successful projects are a collaboration between us and our clients. Most often, it’s clients who have a clear idea of what they want, and put careful thought into articulating it, who end up happiest. Pomegranite has never worked with pricing packages because every website and every organisation is unique, but we understand that creating a brief for a website can be daunting.

Here’s a breakdown of what you need to focus on in a website brief for the best result, and also what our standard practices are so you know exactly what’s handled.

Building (or rebuilding) a website is an opportunity to zoom out and consider your website and how it does or doesn’t accurately reflect and serve your organisation. A website is not an archive of everything you’ve ever done – it’s alive and dynamic. Rather think of it as an interactive brochure or shop front (sometimes it is an actual shop!).

1. Context
   First, we listen to who you are, what you want and how you want your website audience to feel. We will ask about what’s important to your organisation so we can tell the story of what makes you different in your field. How does your website serve your organisation? What do you want from your website? What challenges do you face that the website can address? These are all questions worth brainstorming with your full team. We suggest looking at the sites of others in your field and making a note of things that make you blanch with envy (see point 4).
2. Size of site
   Start thinking practically about what you want to see on your site. Do the pages you currently have work, or is it time to scrap that structure and create a new site map? What content needs its own section to be shown off properly? What can be trimmed or condensed? What journey do you want users to experience on your site?
3. Functionality
   Then think about what the site can do. Is it a brochure site that showcases the work that you do or does it include functional elements like searchable resources, an interactive map, an online store, or a custom form?
4. References
   Have you ever tried to describe an artwork with only words? It’s nigh impossible to evoke it accurately. We’ve learnt that visual elements, like the look and feel of your website, are most successfully discussed with other images as references. We get really excited to see sites you like and sites you don’t like, screengrabs of images, and elements like forms, layouts or banners. Save these from your internal brainstorm and include them in your brief – our team loves them as they help us so much in delivering exactly what you’d like.
5. Internal resources
   Consider and prepare the resources you already have internally, including:
   • Design assets like a design guide or image bank
   • Current website hosting (please ensure you have the logins available)
   • Capacity within your team: our website development process requires input and approval from your team so it’s important that the project is implemented at a time when your team has the capacity to give these decisions proper attention
   • A sense of budget: if you have a budget cap or figure in mind, it’s helpful for us to know this in the early stages so that we can be transparent and strategic about what we can or can’t do with the available budget. We can often suggest alternatives or economical solutions if we’re aware that we need to box clever. On the flip side, if there’s room to dream big and deliver something spectacular, it’s helpful to know that too.

Things to know from our side

It’s helpful for you to know the technical aspects that we take care of. We specialise in WordPress websites – they offer a huge amount of flexibility and support. These items are included in our standard website development:

• Responsive design: your website will adapt to any device or browser
• Google Analytics tracking: activity is tracked from launch
• SEO best practice is used throughout the site
• Caching is used to ensure fast site speed
• Maintenance: WordPress core, theme and plugin updates, security monitoring and backups.

Our standard hosting offering includes:

• Server security
• Multi-level backups stored off-site
• SSL certificate
• Downtime monitoring and support

Our working process with you includes a dedicated project manager to give strategic input and handle briefs, approvals and the project timeline. They will be your point of contact and work collaboratively with whoever you assign to be our point of contact at your organisation. This keeps things streamlined and allows us to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s while making sure we don’t lose the element of magic that makes you – and your website – different from all the rest.

If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with us at info@pomegranite.co.za.