A Process Guide to

Unlock Your Website's

Revenue Potential
Table of Contents
Introduction: A Website That Clicks .......................................................................... 1

Setting Goals For Your Website ................................................................................. 3

A SMART Website ......................................................................................................... 3

The Audience: Who Are You Planning To Engage .................................................. 6

Choosing Your Agency Partner .................................................................................. 7

CMS and Content ........................................................................................................... 9

The Design & Experience ........................................................................................... 11

How Axadra Does Website ........................................................................................ 14

The Process ................................................................................................................... 15

Post Launch .................................................................................................................. 19

Checklist ........................................................................................................................ 20

Introduction

The value of a website for your business and sales cannot be overstated, after

all, it is the face of your brand online.

It should be easier to understand its importance by looking at the growth of

ecommerce sales worldwide. It jumped from $2.3 trillion in 2017 to $4.206

trillion in 2020, and estimated to reach up to $6.5 trillion in 2023 -- which is a

175 percent surge in just six years.

2017 2020 2023

$2.3 trillion $4.206 trillion $6.5 trillion

e-commerce sales estimate e-commerce projected

worldwide sales worldwide e-commerce sales

You can look at a website as you would real estate. Visualise the web as a

space where a vast majority of people are now frequently visiting (as of April

2020, it’s 59 percent of the global population), then visualize how you want a

percentage of these people to go and land into your store, look at your brand,

buy your product or service. This is what your website is for.

If built and designed right, a website has the capability to draw in customers

from all over the world and generate sales for you without needing to spend

the amount of money you would pay for maintenance or lease.

In addition, a website has a critical influence on how people see your business

as well as its credibility and the quality your brand can provide.
The goals of a website for businesses:

01 Boost brand credibility

02 Increase sales and client acquisition

By now, a world without the internet seems unimaginable. It’s grown from

providing information and connecting people to providing for people’s

various needs.

This is how technology has changed business, the evolution influenced how

businesses are able to make more profit as well as the ability to serve more

people worldwide.

A value amplified by the fact that remote work is now a new norm for many.

So with the evolving technology, the change in the economy, and the impact

both have on businesses, what are you going to do?

What is YOUR Website For?

Before setting down the foundation in building or redesigning a website, you
must first determine your goals.

Is it for lead generation, brand awareness, do you want to generate more

sales, increase membership in your establishment or set up the best online
clothing store in the country? No matter the goal, you should be aware that
websites have grown from decades ago. Now, it’s not just a side marketing
project, it’s not just a ‘part’ of your marketing plan, instead, it’s a central
factor -- a key player -- in your marketing efforts.

In setting website goals, you need to be clear and emphasise what you need
to happen. Since different goals involve different elements that will be
incorporated in developing your website. The design (UI) and how
user-friendly you want your website to be, aren’t exactly ‘goals’ that you want
to set at the very beginning.

A guide would be to follow the S.M.A.R.T goal methodology: specific,

measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based.

Specific
Goals should be clear, this way it’s easier
to focus and map out the objectives.

Example GOAL: Generate clickthrough

rate of xxxx-number after 3 months,
with an increase of 10% each month.
 Measurable

Measurable goals are trackable

goals, and if you’re able to track your

goals it will help you stay focused,

modify mistakes and lead you closer

to the goal.

Ex. Yes. Clickthrough Rates can be

measured.

Attainable

Goals should be able to stretch out

your abilities but still be possible to

achieve.

Based on your previous data, it

should be possible.

Realistic

Realistic goals are more likely to

increase your motivation rather than

those that are set too high. You can

base how realistic it is on previous

statistics, available resources, skills,

time and priority.

Ex. Yes. Expecting that amount of

clickthrough rate, at an increase of

10% each month is realistic.

 Time-based:

Deadlines are important because it

allows you to focus on the important

tasks. They force you to prioritise

accomplishing objectives that push

you closer to your goals.

Ex. A deadline that’s set at the end

of the month.

You can set a number of goals such as sales, traffic or sign-ups. This will set

the look and feel of your web design so that it’s built with purpose in mind.

You don’t have to do this on your own. Finding a good web design and

development agency will help you build a website strategy that not only looks

great but has the site set up in a way that it is ready for any technical strategy

that you plan to further implement.

The Audience: Who Are You
Planning To Engage?
Before you proceed with finding the right agency to help you build your
website, it’s advisable to develop your buyer persona(s). You need to
understand who you’re building the website for. With this information you’re
able to have an idea of the design, messaging and content that target your
personas. This will also let you know what agency to look for and how to
qualify them.

Here are some practical ways to help you develop buyer personas:

1
Ask who your product is for

2
Look through your contact database

Divide and categorize them by demographics (occupation, age,

industry, etc.)

4
Pinpoint their needs

5
Map out their behavior

6 Determine the goals and needs of your personas

Your chosen agency can help you with this process but it’s a good practice for

you to have even a basic idea about them first. It will let you filter the

agencies who qualify for the job. Otherwise, it’s also great to brainstorm

about this topic with your chosen agency and gather their professional

insight.

Choosing who’s going to work

on your website

Wouldn’t it be nice if your agency can do everything? Create your website,

make sure it is found online with the right SEO strategy, is savvy with digital

marketing and has the ability to produce the content you need? A handful of

agencies can do these for you and they may offer similar services but how the

success of your campaign will pan out depends from agency to agency.

Why?

Although many agencies offer the same services, ultimately, it all boils down

to the chemistry between you and your agency. First, do the basics:

01 Check the agency’s portfolio. Visit their website and go through

their content and records.

02 Check their testimonials and reviews.

03 Contact them. Whether you contact them through Zoom or Skype,

the point here is to talk to them face to face and see what they’re

about. This is the time to ask important questions as well as see if

you see eye-to-eye.

If you’re building a new website, make sure that you are hiring an expert with

opinions you value because you will be paying for them. They will not only be

doing what you want but will be giving professional and technical input on

how to make your website work better.

Never go for a ‘Yes’ man. These are agencies who tend to agree to everything

the client says just to close a deal -- even when they’re biting more than they

can chew. Not only will you be getting sub-par service but you will end up

spending additional resources in rebuilding your site.

Instead, choose an expert who will ask you what your expectations are,

understand your needs, ask you more questions and provide insights that will

improve your website build. Look for an agency who will provide you with the

best possible web design services with detailed information, and is able to set

expectations.

Whether you found an agency nearby or out of the country is no issue. Web

design is a specialised skill and a service that is delivered online which means

it can be done even when the freelancer or the agency you choose is 6000

miles away. Again, value the relationship and quality of service provider over

distance.

CMS and Content

Back in the days when the web was just a ‘babe’, most sites were built using
HTML where each file is made for every page and each is edited manually, by
code. This became impractical with how many times content has to be
modified nowadays. This is why the content management system or CMS was
created.

Now, even non-coders can modify content inside a website with just a click of
the mouse. CMS provides a user-friendly interface that’s also safe and secure.

You can ask your web design agency to recommend a CMS for you, the more
popular ones are Shopify, Wordpress, Joomla!, Magento, Wix, Squarespace

Choose a CMS that aligns with the functions and extensions that you require
and is flexible enough to keep up with the changes you will be making in the
future.

Once your website goes live, an

ongoing content strategy is
important. Simply put, content is like
the gas that keeps the car running.
No matter how expensive or fast a
car can go won’t matter if there’s no
gas in it. Same thing applies to your
website. In order for your newly built
and optimised website to rank (and
continue to rank) it should always be
sustained with the most relevant
content.

Content is the driving force of your

website so make sure that you plan
for it.
One powerful way of highlighting content and making it work for you is
through blogs. This will not only help in boosting up your site rankings on
search engines but it will build your credibility as a thought leader in your
industry. Not to mention content marketing produces three times more leads
than paid search and companies who blog receive 97 percent more links to
their website which is great for building links and authority.

Pointers to keep in mind:

• It’s important to plan your

content marketing strategy
with SEO in mind

• Plan the content guidelines

Discuss early if you’re going

•
to hire a writer to
implement the content plan

• Make sure that whoever is

responsible for content
understands SEO

• Always incorporate your

company’s brand voice and
implement the guidelines
All About The Design & Experience

It takes about .05 seconds or 50 milliseconds for visitors to judge your website
and it’s when they will determine whether they will stay or leave your
website. There are cases where this doesn’t happen of course, that is if you’re
waiting for a YouTube video to load or you’re reading an update from
theguardian.com. But if you’re a new business website, every second counts
and first impressions are crucial in forming credibility. Your website should
impress in the first millisecond a user lands on any page.

Truth is, you’re competing with hundreds of websites (maybe even thousands,
depending on your line of business) and users simply have the luxury of just
clicking out of your website if they even experience a slight amount of
inefficiency. You don’t want that to happen in the first second.

Which brings us to user experience (UX). In this case, first impressions don't
really last. Your website may impress at first glance but make sure to continue
to impress by making navigation a breeze. If in any case that the user
experiences something negative or complicated (may it be load time or site
navigation), they will just as easily leave.
Bringing the experience to mobile
devices
Your website should look and function great on mobile as it does on desktop.
Mobile isn’t the future anymore, it’s now. We live in a very mobile-centric
environment.The first iPhone was released in 2007, and thirteen years later,
45 percent of the world population now have smartphones. So it’s not so
far-fetched that 72% of all internet users are predicted to access the web
through smartphones.

Google, the largest search engine in the world, announced that it will be
switching to mobile-first indexing starting September 2020. What this means
is that it will prioritise reading or crawling a website’s mobile version over the
desktop version.

In other words, it’s now a must to build a website that will look good on
mobile devices as well as get it prepped to be optimised for mobile indexing
as well. This will ensure that your website will be showing high up the search
results.
Characteristics To Factor In: DESIGN (UI)
•
Responsive and Modern Web Design

•
Mobile Compatibility

•
Browser Compatibility

•
Accessible to All Users

•
Well Planned Site Architecture

• Consistent On All Pages

Characteristics To Factor In: User Experience

•
User Friendly

•
Easy To Navigate

•
Lighting Fast Load Times

• Formatted Content That Is

Easy To Scan

•
Good Error Handling

• Secure
What Goes Into Websites In Axadra
We’re excited to introduce you to our work process. We have designed and
developed hundreds of websites using different platforms which includes
Wordpress and Shopify -- and no matter what other people say, every website
is special.

Here at Axadra, we invest time and effort in building and optimising websites.
We make it a point to provide users with a great experience and that our
clients are able to own a website that can act as a powerful lead generating
engine for their business. Let’s collaborate on this project.

We can’t wait to share with you our love for websites very soon!
 Our Workflow for Website
Projects
Ideally, we would go through the following steps in designing
and developing websites:

Project Planning
Understanding the creative brief,
research into our client’s goals and
the “landscape” in which the site will
exist, taking an inventory of
available assets we can or must use
on the project, development of a
project plan/approach, assembling
our team and agreeing on project
timelines.

Site Architecture
Development
Development of a comprehensive site
map that shows all the pages a website
would have and how they are related to
each other. It all sounds geeky but our
website architects can make complicated
websites manageable by organising the
information that needs to go into them.
 Wireframe
Development
Wireframes are blueprints that
show the relative importance of the
different elements that go into a
page. How the elements of a page is
organised influences the experience
of website users.

User-flow diagram
development
User-flow diagrams combine the
sitemap and wireframes and show how
users would navigate the website.
Especially for interactive and
e-commerce sites, this step is critical to
our success in meeting our clients’
website goals. We use prototyping tools
to develop working models of websites
and provide a proof of concept.
 Comprehensive
Design
Once we have a fully functional website
prototype, our designers can “skin” them.
The design process starts with our
creative design team putting together a
comprehensive design in at least 2
versions or studies. We pin down the look
and feel of the website by using design
elements -- lines, shapes, colours, imagery
and typography that we believe best
represent our client’s brand

Design Completion
We design the rest of the pages of the
website, including how they would look
like on mobile devices

Website Development
and Integration
Our development team completes all
programming and development work on
site, checks for bugs and does fixes.
 Content Migration

We assist our clients in uploading copy

and other content.

On-page Search
Engine Optimisation
We ensure that the website is “search
engine” friendly in terms of title tags,
meta data, alt-tags, image sizes and code.
We also install analytics tracking codes so
our clients can start gathering data as
soon as the website goes live.

Beta Testing

We use a staging site to test the

website “live”.

Project Delivery. Hooray!

 This entire process takes approximately 12 weeks.
But we understand that not all projects are the same and
each website is unique. So we have designed a customised
process for your project which aims to align to your specific
requirements and objectives.

POST LAUNCH
Finally having a website go live is a fulfilling achievement, however, the work
will continue. A website, no matter how beautiful and perfect you think it is at
the moment, will always be a work-in-progress. Like a car, or the human body,
it will need to be sustained with fuel in order for it to run in top form. It will
need to be modified as search engine algorithms change and trends evolve.
Much like a physical store it needs maintenance but unlike a physical store, it
doesn't have to be as expensive nor are you required to do it daily. A redesign
will have to happen at least yearly, if you see any major trends emerging,
while a major redesign (this will involve a full website overhaul) can happen
once every 5 years.

This is a massive project and a major undertaking. This is why it’s imperative
that you partner with and be guided by the right agency from the very
beginning. This will make sure that you’ll be doing the things and all the hard
work will come back to you in terms of increased brand value, sales and
revenue.

HOW ACCESSIBLE IS YOUR WEBSITE?

If you’re a website owner who’s still on the fence about a website redesign or
if you just had a new website built and want to double check how effective it
is, here’s a ‘Website Accessibility Checklist’. This checklist is designed to check
if your website has the right content structure in it. If you have all the boxes
checked, then congratulations on your very healthy website! If you got
80-90% on point, then your website is doing its job. If it’s 70-80% then a little
optimisation will do you some good at this point. A score that’s 50% to 70%
tells you that it’s time for a redesign. While 50% and lower will tell you that
it’s time for that full website overhaul.

Web Pages

Each web page has a unique, clear page title.

There is a distinct contrast between text and background colors.

Page content is organized with clear section headers.

Color alone is not used to convey an action or information.

Lists are formatted properly and with headings.

Content on web pages does not have a time restriction.

Web pages can be crawled and accessed by screen readers.

Images

All images have descriptive alternative text (alt-text).

Image of text only is not used unless necessary (such as a logo).

Tables have alt-text describing the contents or the data collection.

Video & Media
Written transcripts are available for all video and audio content.
Audio transcripts are available for all video content.
Each piece of media has an accompanying text description.
The description contains a way to view or access the transcript.
All videos – live or prerecorded – have closed captioning.
On-page media does not auto-play.
Any media may be paused, stopped, or muted.

Animations
Content does not blink or flash more than three times per second.
Users are able to stop or pause content that blinks or flashes excessively.