See you next week for another tidbit!

Company Information and Background

This should be a brief overview of the company, its history, services or products, business focus, marketing objectives and market demographics. These are just a few elements you could include here. Give as much information here as possible to create a complete business profile, but also keep it neat and short. Also include how decisions about the RFP will be made in this section. Is there a committee review process? Include the members of the committee here with their title and role in the committee.

Project Background and Objectives

This is where you can outline the project objectives, but not the scope or requirements, that will come later. Give the history of the website and how it currently used, both internally and by the general public or your customer base. Address how you see this use changing with the new website. Outline search engine visibility requirements, search engine marketing objectives and/or social media marketing goals. What are the goals for the website and how will you measure success?

Requirements and Scope of Project

This is probably the one area where businesses do not include enough information about their website design project. Start by addressing elements of the current website that should stay. These include any interactive applications, shopping carts or web forms to be transitioned to the new site. Include information on any other systems that interface with the website, or should interface with the website. These include things like an intranet, CRM (customer relationship management) system or email marketing system.

Provide an outline of how you want the content to be managed, by whom and what access they should be given. Specify where content will come from- whether imported from the current site, newly developed or a mix of both. Who will be responsible for generating content prior to the launch date and after.

Outline new applications and functionality as well as design requirements. Be sure to include relevant items from your brand standards guidelines if you have them.

Website Hosting Requirements

This is, by far, the most overlooked piece of information when compiling an RFP. We have lost more than one bid because we provided a solution for a Linux host and the prospect wanted the website hosted internally on their Windows server. If it truly does not matter to you then at least include a statement that hosting is up to the vendor.

Web Design and Development Experience of the Vendor and Key Staff

Ask for testimonials and/or references of other websites the vendor has designed or developed. Ask them to outline their responsibilities for the project. Request identification and resumes for key personnel who will be working on this project. Request information on their web design and development approach including items like revisions, design iterations, scope changes, standards and technologies utilized.

Project Timeline

This is the second most overlooked element of web design RFPs. Make sure to include your anticipated schedule. Even though these will often change as the project progresses, without one your project may never finish.

Project Pricing

This should include a detailed outline of all costs, both one-time and recurring, for the website redesign and development project.

Submission Information

How and when should the vendor respond to your RFP? Be sure to include the deadline and the format for submission, as well as who it should be sent to and at what address.

Cornerstone Blogs

For many businesses blogging has become the cornerstone of their web marketing efforts, a way to disseminate information and reach their target demographic/potential client base in a new way. It allows for dialogue with their clients, albeit still in a top down fashion. The business pushes content down and the masses respond. They could respond in many ways including comments, linkbacks or tweets and retweets. Many businesses use it as a test bed for customer service and/or marketing messages, but there is one overriding characteristic of these blogs. They all add value to the company’s brand image by being useful and providing quality information to their users.

At Westward Strategy we strive to add value every single time we post something. Sure, sometimes we post our own business successes, but more often than not we post the successes of our clients over our own successes. We do research and find supporting and/or opposing arguments to the topic we are writing on. We even publish articles that could be useful to anyone looking for search optimization or web design resources. And we do all of it with the readers/users of our site at the forefront of our minds. If you’re shopping around for a web design firm we hope you can use and/or educate yourself a little bit more with our “10 Questions You Should Ask a Prospective Web Design Company“. It does not matter if you choose to contact us about your project or not.

Now I know what you are saying…

“Chris, if a company uses a blog to publish quality content and that in turn garners more market share and value for the company, isn’t that self-serving?”

The answer – sure, in a way. The difference is cornerstone blogs focus on the customer first and the business second.

Self-serving Blogs

The other type of blog is the self-serving blog. The blog that gets added to an existing website and updated maybe once a month with posts that read something like this:

Reno Car Wash has the best reno car washes in Reno. We use only the best car wash soap and reno car wash equipment at Reno Car Wash. You should stop by Reno Car Wash and see our brand new car wash equipment and get a car wash from Reno Car Wash while you’re there!

Or even worse, they look like this with a bazillion links in them:

Reno Car Wash has the best reno car washes in Reno. We use only the best car wash soap and reno car wash equipment at Reno Car Wash. You should stop by Reno Car Wash and see our brand new car wash equipment and get a car wash from Reno Car Wash while you’re there!

Ok, that may be a little exaggerated, but trust me it’s not by much. It should be painfully obvious, like a frying pan to the skull cap, what the difference is between a cornerstone blog and self-serving blog. Sure the self-serving blog will manage to get information to the user that may be of some use, but really is that the way you talk to your customers? Is that the way you should talk to your customers? The answer to both is NO.

Self-serving blogs are like cheap furniture. They may have a nice wood veneer, but one scratch will reveal the shoddy construction and cheap materials underneath that thin cover. At that point it doesn’t matter what you put into the blog, you or your company will be seen in a not-so-friendly light.

So, the question is, why do you blog? Are you adding value for your clients, customers and website users? Are you helping educate them? Are you freely giving information and knowledge? Or are you posting for your own perceived benefit? Are you blogging to dominate the search results? (See SEO Myth: Blogging Means Top Rankings) Are you adding value or just creating white noise?

Why do you blog?