Justin Kistner

Identifying the type of website your client needs

When working with clients, it is important to identify their specific needs. I’ve put out a few posts to aid in the web development process:

You begin by finding clients. I’ve put together some business development tips for web designers and programmers.
After you find a good client match, you’ll need to scope their project, which you can use my intake questions for web designers and programmers as a guide.
Once you understand their needs you’re ready to establishing an agreement and write up the proposal.
Finally, you’re ready to fulfill the work. Check out my project management and development process for web designers and programmers for a mature development methodology.

This post is written to compliment step #2 in the process. After you ask all of the intake questions, you’re ready to discuss the specific type of website your client needs. Here is a breakdown of the types of websites a client could ask for, complete with examples and tips:

Branding site

Definition of a branding site: Branding sites introduce or educate consumers about a company’s products and/or services. The purpose of a branding site is to create desire for products and/or services in order to drive sales elsewhere (either at another site online or a physical location such as a store).
Examples of branding sites: Nike 6.0; Pepsi; Ford
Tips for managing client expectations around branding sites: Branding sites are nearly impossible to measure ROI as their primary function is simply to disseminate information and create desire for action to happen elsewhere. It is important to let the client know that paying for the development of a branding site is an investment in their brand and should be budgeted as so.; Branding sites are 100% based on content, so this will be an important project to nail down content early. If you need help explaining this to clients, explain that content drives design. It’s also critical to express that a chef is only as good as his ingredients. That means if they give you copy and photos that suck, so will the site. It’s a good idea to invest in professional writing and photography (and video) to produce the best quality site.

Commerce site

Definition of a commerce site: Commerce sites main function is to enable the purchase of products and/or services.
Examples of commerce sites: Amazon.com; db clay; Think Geek
Tips for managing client expectations around commerce sites: The first thing you’ll want to explain is that commerce sites are more than websites, they are an extension of a business. Creating commerce sites is not as simple as designing the website, you’ll also need to make sure there are procedures in place for handling the fulfillment of orders, customer service issues, and inventory management.; Explain that there are six things required to do proper ecommerce: domain name, hosting, secure certificate (SSL), payment gateway, merchant account, and an OMS (commonly a shopping cart).; Selecting and/or building an OMS is a huge undertaking. If you use an existing solution you’ll need to build in a lot of time for training and support. In fact, support needs to be an ongoing contract. I don’t recommend building an OMS, like a shopping cart, because dealing with money has a lot of liability connected to it and it will turn into a long-term demand on your time.

Social site

Definition of a social site: Social sites cover a broad spectrum of sites where people communicate, share ideas and interact with each other and/or the host of the site. They include sites like social networks, blogs, and online communities.
Examples of social sites: Facebook; Flickr; LinkedIn
Tips for managing client expectations around social sites: Building community is not easy. Wisdump put out a great article that graphs the Ebb and Flow of Social Networking.; If your client says something crazy like, “I want to build a social networking site.” Show them this user model diagram for Flickr.; It is possible for clients to grow a community over time, and a great example of this is the 9rules network growth.; Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, I recommend using existing solutions like Ning or WordPress.; Be prepared to have staff on the client side to handle moderation.

Portal site

Definition of a portal site: Portal sites are places that create/aggregate news or information.
Examples of portal sites: New York Times; TechMeme; Fark
Tips for managing client expectations around portal sites: These are content hungry sites. The client will need to have dedicated staff to create the volume of content called for in a portal site. Likely, they’ll need to have a few dedicated team members.; I would utilize existing CMSs to handle projects like these, such as Drupal, Pligg, or WordPress; Because this is an ongoing content development project, you’ll need to see an existing base of content to understand the site’s organization and design needs. If this is the client’s initial attempt at creating a content portal, I recommend holding off on custom designs until after they have filled the CMS with entries for a month to three months. The reason is that we think we know what kind of content we’ll create, but it’s usually quite different from what we really produce.

Service site

Definition of a service site: Service sites main function are to perform a service for other sites.
Examples of service sites: Feedburner; WidgetBox; PhotoBucket
Tips for managing client expectations around service sites: Because service sites are applications, likely the only work to be done for a client like this is design. If a client approaches you about building an application for a service site, consider that a red flag, Only a uninformed business person trying to get rich quick would outsource the development of an application that they will be responsible for supporting.; If you are hired to design an interface for a service site, make sure they provide you with all of the raw HTML and page description diagrams.

Combination site

Any site that incorporates more than one of the site types above. Nearly every site on the web is some combination of these ideas. Knowing the different types of sites and their respective needs will help you discuss things with more clarity with your clients.