Coming Soon: Our website launch
About that website launch party we’re not going to have. We haven’t ordered cases of beer, ice sculptures, a band or even a disco floor. We’ve invited precisely no-one. You see, we feel a little differently about launching a website.
We love launching our new website, we do it every time we make a change to it.
Focus only on what is essential right now
Our own site started life as a single page with a paragraph of text, photos of Stewart and Mark, a list of capabilities and a contact email address on it. That was exactly what we needed online at the time. Nothing more, nothing less.
When circumstances dictate that we need more from our site, we add more. The first addition was a list of what we were currently working on. Once we had some content on our social channels, we added links to them from our site. More recently, we added a “work” section to publish case studies and then, once we had some thoughts/opinions written down, we added a blog section too. This article lives within the blog.
That iteration thing
Instead of trying to second guess the future, we do what we encourage others to do, we focus on “right now” and then iterate when we need to. This is not to say that there isn’t a strategy in place, far from it, it’s that the strategy is not a fixed list of actions on a roadmap. Strategy should be adaptable.
Websites are never finished
In broad terms, this means our website is always under development, has always been under development and will always be under development. It will never be “finished” and no matter how you feel about your own website, neither will yours be.
So, that’s been a lovely read but what’s your point?
It’s very easy to get hung up on websites. Chasing future-proof perfection tends to result in websites which take many months to launch or which never launch at all. Nobody wants that frustration in their life. Relax, your website will never be finished and that’s ok.
It’s perfectly fine to launch one page at a time, a new section next month, some updated graphics in 6 months time, new functionality when it’s needed. The time to do each part of this is when those actual requirements actually need to be met. Focus on what you need today and make that “iteration 1”. When you’ve delivered that, you’ll know what to do next.
The important thing is to have a website online which meets the needs of your business right now. It’s out there, doing it’s job and delivering value efficiently and with minimum fuss. We believe that’s the sign of a good website and that kind of site deserves a launch party…even though we’re not having one.
