Single vs. Phased Website Release Strategy
Determine Your Approach to Releasing Website Functionality
There are several ways in which you can approach the development and
release of your website. One approach that I call
the "Single Release" approach is to
spend months and tons of cash building a fully functional,
full featured website that satisfies all of your
business needs. Another approach is what I call a "Phased Release"
approach in which you identify the most important and
critical business needs and develop a website to satisfy only a limited
set of functionality and plan to build and release more functionality later.
Single Release Approach
There are a few reasons why some businesses may want to release a full-blown and fully featured
website all at one time:
- There is a big budget, a big dev team, and you are trying to compete with existing websites of a similar nature.
- Every functional requirement was identified as "critical" and the site will fail if one is omitted.
- Time to market is unimportant, it won't matter if you launch in 2 months or 6 to 9 months.
- Functionality is set in stone and will not change in the future.
- Get the site built in "one shot", and don't spend the rest of eternity in a website development mode.
When I look at the list above, the only one that has any validity is the first one. If you fall into this category
then most of the advice I am giving here will probably not apply since this series of articles is focused on
small businesses that don't have huge budgets and big development teams.
The most important thing to realize when entering into the online market is that it is
extremely dynamic. New developments occur daily, so project plans will need to adapt to these changes.
From a small business point of view, all of the statements above are pretty unreasonable,
but the last one about wanting to get the site built in one shot and not wanting to
be involved in a perpetual development mode is one I would like to address directly.
As I see it, if you don't plan to be constantly improving and working on your website, you should seriously
reconsider your choice to build one. Websites are not static entities, they require constant attention and
and continual investment if they are going to grow and be profitable. If you don't continue to add to the
functionality of your site, new sites will come along with cool features and will make your site obsolete.
Phased Release Approach
Starting out small and planning to add functionality in several releases is, in my opinion,
the smart, cost effective, and most expedient way to approach a website development project.
Here are some benefits of following a phased release approach:
- Get your website online quickly at a reasonable cost.
- Start generating revenue so further website development will be self-funded.
- Start getting feedback from your users.
- Get the SEO ball rolling, get a good PageRank, and start building some customer loyalty right away.
- Avoid paying for features that are useless.
- Quickly start analyzing traffic patterns and what topics and features appeal to your audience the most.
- Give your design and development team a "test-drive" before committing to a huge project.
- You will get better at this stuff, so the 2nd phase will be enhanced and streamlined because you have done it before.