Planning is an essential part of creating websites. It is often as important as website development itself. A good website project plan can help you:

• reduce risks and possible problems during the development
• manage your time and resources better
• keep the focus on your project goals and objectives
• carry out tasks with greater efficiency
• stick to the agreed schedule and deadlines
• improve communication with web designers and developers

Website development project plan - what to include

Before you start any work on the code of your website, you will need to think about its:

• purpose - what do you want your website to accomplish (eg find new customers, generate leads, advertise your business, sell online, etc)
• users - who will use the website, how/when will they do it, what devices will they be using to access your site
• structure - how you want to organise it, eg how users will navigate through the site and how different pages should be laid out
• design - how it will look like and be used, eg elements such as logos, menu selection, etc
• content - what information (text, image, media etc) do you want to publish on the site and who will develop, populate and maintain it
• content management system - how you will add and edit the content on your website
• domain name - what will be your domain name, ie your URL, and what you need to do to register it
• web host - who will host your website and what website hosting options will best suit your needs
• development - will you choose an off-the-shelf template to build your site, use an online tool, or commission a web developer

A good website project plan should set out:

• a task list - for every step of the website creation process
• a schedule - the timeline for the completion of tasks, testing and launch
• a budget - to cover all stages of the project (ie planning, design and development costs, any bespoke functionality you might need, as well as training, annual hosting and support costs, copywriting, etc)

Aim to create clear and detailed specifications during the planning stage. You can break them down into planning, design and development sections in your plan. It may help to include charts to visualise your timeline and milestones.

Website development project documents

You can search online for free or commercial website project plan templates, including task lists, project schedules and budget plans. Other documents that you might find helpful include:

• work breakdown structure
• feature descriptions
• responsibility assignment matrix
• risk register and response plan
• project iteration and closure reviews

See also project management templates and tools.

A domain name identifies a website's location on the internet. You should choose your domain name carefully, as it will effectively support your brand and business online.

Different types of domain names for business

There are many different types of domain names. They generally fall under one of two categories:

• generic top-level domains (gTLDs) such as .net, .com, .org, .biz and .info
• country code top-level domains such as .uk for the UK

Most UK companies choose to have domain names that end in .com or .co.uk. Some Northern Ireland businesses also use .ie as another option.

There are now hundreds of gTLDs available to register, eg .london, .company, .club, .eu. Think carefully about the geographical implications of your server and domain names, as they can affect local search results.

What is a good domain name?

When choosing a domain name, most businesses choose a name based on the name of their business or product. Your domain name should be:

• short
• easy to spell
• easy to remember
• relevant to your business or product

You should avoid choosing a domain name that:

• misuses a trade mark that belongs to another business
• misleads users into thinking you are someone else
• contains lots of dashes (eg my-new-website-business-and-shop.co.uk) - this looks unprofessional, is difficult to remember and some search engines may consider it to be spam

How to buy a domain name?

You can register a domain name through an internet service provider (ISP) or a domain registration agent. See a list of ICANN accredited registrars, registrars accredited in the UK, or registrars accredited in the EU.

You will need to pay a small fee to register your domain name. This will grant it protection for the duration of the registration period.

Domains are not forever. You can't buy a domain name outright or permanently. You will have to renew your registration annually to keep ownership of your domain name.

It is important to understand that domain names are unique. They are allocated on a first come, first served basis, so it is possible that your preferred domain is already in use. You can check if the domain of your choice is available with registrars such as Nominet.

There are many ways to plan content and information architecture for a website. Depending on the size of your site, you may use one or more tools and techniques, such as:

• sitemaps
• content inventories
• content mapping
• card sorting
• paper sketches

What are sitemaps?

Sitemap diagrams are graphic tools that can help you to:

• visualise the relationships between pages on your website
• ensure the right flow between pages
• spot gaps in content
• develop your website design around content, rather than the other way around
• encourage team collaboration and allocation of content creation
• identify potential issues that could affect content creation and project deadlines

You can draw up a sitemap in a word document, on a spreadsheet, or use one of many free tools that are available online.

See examples of sitemap documents or browse online to find more.

Content inventory tool

A content inventory can help you examine the scope and purpose of each page on the site. It can be time-consuming to create but useful if you are relaunching an existing site, as it will help you to:

• record and analyse each item of content that you have
• establish how well it performs
• segment your content types and work out how best to present them

Find out more about content inventory.

What is content mapping?

Content mapping is a visual technique that can help you plan your website content. It is a method that combines:

• an analysis of your business goals
• an assessment of your audience
• your content objectives

By carrying out these activities, you can produce content maps for your site and work out which content should feature. Content mapping can help you explore and visualise your content, and its effectiveness and root it in clearly defined business goals. You can also use simple card sorting and paper sketches to organise your content according to hierarchy. 

When choosing your method of content planning, consider the size and type of your website. For example, a laborious content mapping exercise may be excessive if you are building a simple brochure site.

When to start planning content?

Good website content takes time, a strategic approach and often many revisions. Make sure that you consider content early on in the website planning process to prevent delays and cost overruns during development.

A good website layout and a clear hierarchy are vital for the success of your project. They will help your users navigate your site and easily find the content or pages that they are looking for. Poor layout will provide a bad user experience and prevent your customers from accessing your information, services or goods.

As with content planning, certain techniques can help you with designing your website layout. The most common one is using wireframes.

What are wireframes?

Wireframes are a popular way of mapping out a website. They allow you to create a mockup - ie a skeleton of the site that shows the basic elements you intend to include.

These elements should include only the core layout, structure and organisation rather than the detailed visuals. A wireframe may comprise simply:

• labelled boxes that illustrate the overall navigation
• blocks of content that each webpage will contain

When developing your website structure, it's important to take account of web accessibility requirements, as well as your user's needs. Read about best practice in web design.

Benefits of wireframing

Wireframes are generally low-fidelity, basic and easy to understand. They are also quick and cheap to produce. You can draw a wireframe using Word, PowerPoint or Illustrator, or simply with a pencil and paper.

They are also typically very easy to change, and handy to share for feedback or fine-tune with your project team or web designers. Designers tend to use wireframes to show the navigation flow between the different screens. Developers may use them to get a better understanding of the core functionalities of the site.

What is a wireframe prototype?

Wireframes don't contain real content, so establishing the final layout of the screen may be difficult. However, wireframes often provide the basis for more functional prototypes.

Prototypes offer greater fidelity with regard to the design of your website. They provide more visual detail and can include user interaction functionality. A prototype should represent the final product as closely as possible.

You can use a prototype to test, demonstrate and validate the functionality of your website design. See how to test and launch your website.

There are many ways to build a website. Depending on your skills and budget restrictions, you can build it yourself, use templates or 'site builder' tools, or hire a web designer to build it for you.

Do-it-yourself website

Building a website from scratch is generally only an option if you have:

• good technical knowledge, especially of HTML
• a web-building application or software, such as Adobe Dreamweaver
• staff in-house who have the skills and the expertise required

HTML is the foundation of building websites. Even if you rely on web-building tools, some degree of HTML knowledge will likely be necessary to help you carry out the project. Be realistic about the skills of those involved and seek advice from IT professionals if you need it.

Use templates or 'site builder' tools

There are many great options for using templates or online tools for building websites. This method usually allows you to:

• create a website quickly and easily
• choose from thousands of themes and designs
• customise different elements, such as navigation and page layout
• use plugins for added functionality or features of the site

All you need to do is choose your template and add your content, and your website is generally ready to go. Web design or web hosting companies typically offer different packages and template options at different prices. They are usually more affordable than commissioning a designer and can include a one-off charge or monthly/annual payments.

Commission a web designer or an agency

You don't have to have a huge budget to be able to work with a web designer or an agency.

The expertise that they will bring to the project will likely be worth the extra cost, as they will be able to guide you through the whole process - from planning and idea generation to site implementation and launch.

To make sure you're happy with the results, brief the designer carefully and agree in advance on the key issues around the project. See how to choose and work with a designer.

Legal considerations

Whatever way you choose to build your website, make sure that you follow best practice in web design. Be aware of:

• web accessibility issues
• e-commerce regulations if you are selling products or services via your website
• your responsibilities under the data protection regulations, especially around issues of consent, tracking and third-party services

Your website's privacy notices, terms and conditions, subscription forms, other opt-ins and data capture processes must all comply with the data protection rules.

Website documentation

Once you decide what way you want to build your site, you will need to:

• develop key documentation for your site (eg terms and conditions, disclaimers, etc)
• disclose certain information about your company on your website

See business websites: legal requirements.

You can also use our sample IT policies, disclaimers and notices to find free templates for your business, including our UK GDPR compliant sample privacy notice.

Once you design and develop your website, you will have to carry out testing to make sure that it is ready to go live. These processes are known as 'implementation'. You will go through several phases during the implementation process.

Provide staff training

When you are getting your website ready for launch, you will need to train your staff on relevant procedures and maintenance tasks. You should encourage staff involvement and feedback, as staff buy-in can make or break a technology project.

Before arranging training for your staff, you should carry out a training and learning needs analysis to ensure that your training is cost-effective and worthwhile.

You should also consider setting up a cross-departmental task force to manage the implementation process. It will help with staff buy-in and help ensure the website is compatible with other business systems - for example, your accounts package or customer database.

Carry out system testing

Before putting the website live, you need to test it sufficiently. Poor testing or no testing is extremely risky. Errors that appear later can be expensive to correct - and may damage your business' reputation.

The main purpose of testing is to assess your website's:

• usability
• accessibility
• functionality

Testing should also look at the response times experienced by users and verify how the site functions under peak loads. It is also useful to see how easily users can access and navigate through the site across different platforms. See more on best practice in web design.

Plan the launch of your website

Decide whether to have a soft launch to existing customers or go public right away to as wide an audience as possible. Ahead of the launch, you will also need to plan:

• How you will market the site - both offline and online?
• Who will maintain the site - will you do it in-house or outsource the maintenance?
• Will your staff need any additional training to maintain the site?
• Who will manage customer feedback and any online orders?

Promote your website and engage with online customers

When you launch the site, you need to encourage existing customers to use it. Ensure that you promote the web address in your marketing material and that the website is accessible through search engines. Use search marketing techniques like search engine optimisation and pay-per-click and paid search advertising.

See also how to develop a digital marketing plan.

Maintaining your website is crucial. As a website provider, you have the responsibility to ensure that the content of your website is accurate and up-to-date and that your visitors' data is protected from misuse.

Reviewing your website

Reviewing your website regularly is the best way to ensure that your business website is up-to-date and error-free. You can schedule a review calendar or carry out ongoing checks to manage:

• your content - including spelling and grammatical errors and out-of-date information
• internal and external links - including irrelevant links, broken links or redirects
• advertising or sponsorship banners - eg merchant's links in affiliate marketing
• compliance with advertising rules, if applicable

You can use many free and paid-for tools to help you maintain your website. These tools can identify broken links, missing images, spelling mistakes and other problems that can damage user confidence and adversely affect your search engine ranking.

Updating your website

Keep your website content as up-to-date as possible. Archive any out-of-date content and make sure that you provide something new for your users to come back to. Fresh content will also help you secure better search engine ranking. If relevant, you can use user-generated content to help keep your website engaging and up-to-date. You can integrate your social media accounts to keep your website current - see more on social media best practice for business.

Content management

If your website has a lot of dynamic content that changes frequently, consider using a content management system. This software can help with collecting, arranging and managing content on a website, an intranet or an extranet.

Website maintenance options

Four main options for carrying out website maintenance are:

• Do it yourself - use tools such as WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') editors, graphics software and various online validation services to maintain your site.
• Pay for ad-hoc updates - eg to your internet service provider (ISP). This is viable if the changes are relatively infrequent. However, as your site grows it will become less cost-effective.
• Use content management software (CMS) - you can use such tools on their own or as part of a general maintenance contract. Some CMS tools are free, although there are many for which you may need to pay an annual fee or monthly cost.
• Set up a maintenance agreement - with your ISP, a website developer or a digital agency. This may suit if you need to carry out regular and frequent updates to the content, monitor activities, or patch and maintain your content management software. Maintenance agreements involve a fee, usually on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Website maintenance budget

No matter how you decide to maintain your website, make sure that you fully budget for it - there will be a cost even for routine updates to your site. You will need to ensure that your website is fully backed up. You may also need an additional budget for further upgrading or redesigning of the site.

It is important to monitor how your website performs and the way visitors use it.

Performance monitoring tools

Many websites experience slow performance, outages, content errors, transaction failures, etc. To address these problems, consider using website performance monitoring tools.

These tools can:

• measure the response times of specific transactions
• pinpoint the location of bottlenecks that slow down the website (eg an application server or a network router)
• identify the causes for slow page loading speeds (eg loading too many banners, too many high-resolution graphics files, or disk space problems)

Many of the main search engines - such as Google, Bing and Yahoo - provide tips, advice and tools to help you improve the performance of your website.

Monitoring website traffic

As part of website maintenance, you should track how users find your website and what they do once they get there. Web analytics tools can help you determine:

• how many visitors click on your pages
• the dates and times each visitor accessed your site
• the individual IP (internet protocol) address of each visitor's computer
• where (what online source) did your visitor come from - eg from search, another website or social media platform
• how many pages do they visit
• which pages they spend the most time on
• the type of browser, operating system or mobile device used by each visitor

This information can help shape your content strategy, offer valuable feedback on your marketing activities, or customise features to help address visitor needs.

You can use free services - such as Google Analytics and Bing Webmaster tools to help you monitor your website traffic, or use paid-for tools offered by your web host or specialist analytics companies. These types of tools work by adding tracking codes to your website pages that collect different types of user data, including personal data such as IP addresses.

Website tracking and data protection

Data protection laws affect how you as a website owner may use tracking software to monitor your website visitors. They also affect your privacy policy and the manner in which you can obtain consent from your users for setting the cookies.

To ensure that you comply with the data protection laws, you should:

• control how you're transmitting personal data to third parties (eg from your page URLs to Google Analytics)
• use your analytics tool features to anonymise any IP data you collect
• use pseudonymous identifiers, such as User ID, hashed or encrypted data or transaction IDs
• provide transparency about the data processing on your site in your privacy information
• follow the rules on obtaining and managing consent

Find out more about the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

What is website benchmarking?

Website benchmarking helps you to see what other businesses are doing online and where your website stands in relation to others. This knowledge can help you better understand your position in the market and boost your competitive advantage.

You can benchmark, for example, your:

• website performance
• search performance
• usability performance
• marketing performance

Learn more about benchmarking and see how to benchmark your business performance.

In the past, selling online was traditionally associated with consumer-facing retail businesses. Now, a broader range of businesses is investing in e-commerce – particularly those trading with other businesses.

Invest Northern Ireland has produced a suite of video tutorials to outline how e-commerce could work for your business, and what benefits you can expect from selling your products and services online.

E-commerce introduction

This video introduces e-commerce and outlines the topics that will be discussed throughout the tutorial including online marketplaces, building an e-commerce website, digital marketing, legal and security issues and effective market research.

E-commerce research

This video discusses the importance of laying a firm foundation for creating your e-commerce website by conducting thorough market research and looking at your competitors, your products, target market, human resources and internal processes.

Online marketplaces

This video looks at online marketplaces and outlines some common ways to get your product or service in front of your customer by using online selling platforms such as eBay and Amazon. It also outlines the first things you should consider when it comes to creating your own e-commerce website.

Digital marketing and e-commerce

This video explains the vital role of digital marketing when it comes to selling your product or service online and explores search engine optimisation, paid advertising and social media marketing, and the importance of analytics.

Legal and security issues with e-commerce

The final video highlights the legal and security measures that are required when selling online to protect your business, brand and your customers. It also covers the legislation that may be relevant to your e-commerce activity.

Planning is an essential part of creating websites. It is often as important as website development itself. A good website project plan can help you:

• reduce risks and possible problems during the development
• manage your time and resources better
• keep the focus on your project goals and objectives
• carry out tasks with greater efficiency
• stick to the agreed schedule and deadlines
• improve communication with web designers and developers

Website development project plan - what to include

Before you start any work on the code of your website, you will need to think about its:

• purpose - what do you want your website to accomplish (eg find new customers, generate leads, advertise your business, sell online, etc)
• users - who will use the website, how/when will they do it, what devices will they be using to access your site
• structure - how you want to organise it, eg how users will navigate through the site and how different pages should be laid out
• design - how it will look like and be used, eg elements such as logos, menu selection, etc
• content - what information (text, image, media etc) do you want to publish on the site and who will develop, populate and maintain it
• content management system - how you will add and edit the content on your website
• domain name - what will be your domain name, ie your URL, and what you need to do to register it
• web host - who will host your website and what website hosting options will best suit your needs
• development - will you choose an off-the-shelf template to build your site, use an online tool, or commission a web developer

A good website project plan should set out:

• a task list - for every step of the website creation process
• a schedule - the timeline for the completion of tasks, testing and launch
• a budget - to cover all stages of the project (ie planning, design and development costs, any bespoke functionality you might need, as well as training, annual hosting and support costs, copywriting, etc)

Aim to create clear and detailed specifications during the planning stage. You can break them down into planning, design and development sections in your plan. It may help to include charts to visualise your timeline and milestones.

Website development project documents

You can search online for free or commercial website project plan templates, including task lists, project schedules and budget plans. Other documents that you might find helpful include:

• work breakdown structure
• feature descriptions
• responsibility assignment matrix
• risk register and response plan
• project iteration and closure reviews

See also project management templates and tools.

A domain name identifies a website's location on the internet. You should choose your domain name carefully, as it will effectively support your brand and business online.

Different types of domain names for business

There are many different types of domain names. They generally fall under one of two categories:

• generic top-level domains (gTLDs) such as .net, .com, .org, .biz and .info
• country code top-level domains such as .uk for the UK

Most UK companies choose to have domain names that end in .com or .co.uk. Some Northern Ireland businesses also use .ie as another option.

There are now hundreds of gTLDs available to register, eg .london, .company, .club, .eu. Think carefully about the geographical implications of your server and domain names, as they can affect local search results.

What is a good domain name?

When choosing a domain name, most businesses choose a name based on the name of their business or product. Your domain name should be:

• short
• easy to spell
• easy to remember
• relevant to your business or product

You should avoid choosing a domain name that:

• misuses a trade mark that belongs to another business
• misleads users into thinking you are someone else
• contains lots of dashes (eg my-new-website-business-and-shop.co.uk) - this looks unprofessional, is difficult to remember and some search engines may consider it to be spam

How to buy a domain name?

You can register a domain name through an internet service provider (ISP) or a domain registration agent. See a list of ICANN accredited registrars, registrars accredited in the UK, or registrars accredited in the EU.

You will need to pay a small fee to register your domain name. This will grant it protection for the duration of the registration period.

Domains are not forever. You can't buy a domain name outright or permanently. You will have to renew your registration annually to keep ownership of your domain name.

It is important to understand that domain names are unique. They are allocated on a first come, first served basis, so it is possible that your preferred domain is already in use. You can check if the domain of your choice is available with registrars such as Nominet.

There are many ways to plan content and information architecture for a website. Depending on the size of your site, you may use one or more tools and techniques, such as:

• sitemaps
• content inventories
• content mapping
• card sorting
• paper sketches

What are sitemaps?

Sitemap diagrams are graphic tools that can help you to:

• visualise the relationships between pages on your website
• ensure the right flow between pages
• spot gaps in content
• develop your website design around content, rather than the other way around
• encourage team collaboration and allocation of content creation
• identify potential issues that could affect content creation and project deadlines

You can draw up a sitemap in a word document, on a spreadsheet, or use one of many free tools that are available online.

See examples of sitemap documents or browse online to find more.

Content inventory tool

A content inventory can help you examine the scope and purpose of each page on the site. It can be time-consuming to create but useful if you are relaunching an existing site, as it will help you to:

• record and analyse each item of content that you have
• establish how well it performs
• segment your content types and work out how best to present them

Find out more about content inventory.

What is content mapping?

Content mapping is a visual technique that can help you plan your website content. It is a method that combines:

• an analysis of your business goals
• an assessment of your audience
• your content objectives

By carrying out these activities, you can produce content maps for your site and work out which content should feature. Content mapping can help you explore and visualise your content, and its effectiveness and root it in clearly defined business goals. You can also use simple card sorting and paper sketches to organise your content according to hierarchy. 

When choosing your method of content planning, consider the size and type of your website. For example, a laborious content mapping exercise may be excessive if you are building a simple brochure site.

When to start planning content?

Good website content takes time, a strategic approach and often many revisions. Make sure that you consider content early on in the website planning process to prevent delays and cost overruns during development.

A good website layout and a clear hierarchy are vital for the success of your project. They will help your users navigate your site and easily find the content or pages that they are looking for. Poor layout will provide a bad user experience and prevent your customers from accessing your information, services or goods.

As with content planning, certain techniques can help you with designing your website layout. The most common one is using wireframes.

What are wireframes?

Wireframes are a popular way of mapping out a website. They allow you to create a mockup - ie a skeleton of the site that shows the basic elements you intend to include.

These elements should include only the core layout, structure and organisation rather than the detailed visuals. A wireframe may comprise simply:

• labelled boxes that illustrate the overall navigation
• blocks of content that each webpage will contain

When developing your website structure, it's important to take account of web accessibility requirements, as well as your user's needs. Read about best practice in web design.

Benefits of wireframing

Wireframes are generally low-fidelity, basic and easy to understand. They are also quick and cheap to produce. You can draw a wireframe using Word, PowerPoint or Illustrator, or simply with a pencil and paper.

They are also typically very easy to change, and handy to share for feedback or fine-tune with your project team or web designers. Designers tend to use wireframes to show the navigation flow between the different screens. Developers may use them to get a better understanding of the core functionalities of the site.

What is a wireframe prototype?

Wireframes don't contain real content, so establishing the final layout of the screen may be difficult. However, wireframes often provide the basis for more functional prototypes.

Prototypes offer greater fidelity with regard to the design of your website. They provide more visual detail and can include user interaction functionality. A prototype should represent the final product as closely as possible.

You can use a prototype to test, demonstrate and validate the functionality of your website design. See how to test and launch your website.

There are many ways to build a website. Depending on your skills and budget restrictions, you can build it yourself, use templates or 'site builder' tools, or hire a web designer to build it for you.

Do-it-yourself website

Building a website from scratch is generally only an option if you have:

• good technical knowledge, especially of HTML
• a web-building application or software, such as Adobe Dreamweaver
• staff in-house who have the skills and the expertise required

HTML is the foundation of building websites. Even if you rely on web-building tools, some degree of HTML knowledge will likely be necessary to help you carry out the project. Be realistic about the skills of those involved and seek advice from IT professionals if you need it.

Use templates or 'site builder' tools

There are many great options for using templates or online tools for building websites. This method usually allows you to:

• create a website quickly and easily
• choose from thousands of themes and designs
• customise different elements, such as navigation and page layout
• use plugins for added functionality or features of the site

All you need to do is choose your template and add your content, and your website is generally ready to go. Web design or web hosting companies typically offer different packages and template options at different prices. They are usually more affordable than commissioning a designer and can include a one-off charge or monthly/annual payments.

Commission a web designer or an agency

You don't have to have a huge budget to be able to work with a web designer or an agency.

The expertise that they will bring to the project will likely be worth the extra cost, as they will be able to guide you through the whole process - from planning and idea generation to site implementation and launch.

To make sure you're happy with the results, brief the designer carefully and agree in advance on the key issues around the project. See how to choose and work with a designer.

Legal considerations

Whatever way you choose to build your website, make sure that you follow best practice in web design. Be aware of:

• web accessibility issues
• e-commerce regulations if you are selling products or services via your website
• your responsibilities under the data protection regulations, especially around issues of consent, tracking and third-party services

Your website's privacy notices, terms and conditions, subscription forms, other opt-ins and data capture processes must all comply with the data protection rules.

Website documentation

Once you decide what way you want to build your site, you will need to:

• develop key documentation for your site (eg terms and conditions, disclaimers, etc)
• disclose certain information about your company on your website

See business websites: legal requirements.

You can also use our sample IT policies, disclaimers and notices to find free templates for your business, including our UK GDPR compliant sample privacy notice.

Once you design and develop your website, you will have to carry out testing to make sure that it is ready to go live. These processes are known as 'implementation'. You will go through several phases during the implementation process.

Provide staff training

When you are getting your website ready for launch, you will need to train your staff on relevant procedures and maintenance tasks. You should encourage staff involvement and feedback, as staff buy-in can make or break a technology project.

Before arranging training for your staff, you should carry out a training and learning needs analysis to ensure that your training is cost-effective and worthwhile.

You should also consider setting up a cross-departmental task force to manage the implementation process. It will help with staff buy-in and help ensure the website is compatible with other business systems - for example, your accounts package or customer database.

Carry out system testing

Before putting the website live, you need to test it sufficiently. Poor testing or no testing is extremely risky. Errors that appear later can be expensive to correct - and may damage your business' reputation.

The main purpose of testing is to assess your website's:

• usability
• accessibility
• functionality

Testing should also look at the response times experienced by users and verify how the site functions under peak loads. It is also useful to see how easily users can access and navigate through the site across different platforms. See more on best practice in web design.

Plan the launch of your website

Decide whether to have a soft launch to existing customers or go public right away to as wide an audience as possible. Ahead of the launch, you will also need to plan:

• How you will market the site - both offline and online?
• Who will maintain the site - will you do it in-house or outsource the maintenance?
• Will your staff need any additional training to maintain the site?
• Who will manage customer feedback and any online orders?

Promote your website and engage with online customers

When you launch the site, you need to encourage existing customers to use it. Ensure that you promote the web address in your marketing material and that the website is accessible through search engines. Use search marketing techniques like search engine optimisation and pay-per-click and paid search advertising.

See also how to develop a digital marketing plan.

Maintaining your website is crucial. As a website provider, you have the responsibility to ensure that the content of your website is accurate and up-to-date and that your visitors' data is protected from misuse.

Reviewing your website

Reviewing your website regularly is the best way to ensure that your business website is up-to-date and error-free. You can schedule a review calendar or carry out ongoing checks to manage:

• your content - including spelling and grammatical errors and out-of-date information
• internal and external links - including irrelevant links, broken links or redirects
• advertising or sponsorship banners - eg merchant's links in affiliate marketing
• compliance with advertising rules, if applicable

You can use many free and paid-for tools to help you maintain your website. These tools can identify broken links, missing images, spelling mistakes and other problems that can damage user confidence and adversely affect your search engine ranking.

Updating your website

Keep your website content as up-to-date as possible. Archive any out-of-date content and make sure that you provide something new for your users to come back to. Fresh content will also help you secure better search engine ranking. If relevant, you can use user-generated content to help keep your website engaging and up-to-date. You can integrate your social media accounts to keep your website current - see more on social media best practice for business.

Content management

If your website has a lot of dynamic content that changes frequently, consider using a content management system. This software can help with collecting, arranging and managing content on a website, an intranet or an extranet.

Website maintenance options

Four main options for carrying out website maintenance are:

• Do it yourself - use tools such as WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') editors, graphics software and various online validation services to maintain your site.
• Pay for ad-hoc updates - eg to your internet service provider (ISP). This is viable if the changes are relatively infrequent. However, as your site grows it will become less cost-effective.
• Use content management software (CMS) - you can use such tools on their own or as part of a general maintenance contract. Some CMS tools are free, although there are many for which you may need to pay an annual fee or monthly cost.
• Set up a maintenance agreement - with your ISP, a website developer or a digital agency. This may suit if you need to carry out regular and frequent updates to the content, monitor activities, or patch and maintain your content management software. Maintenance agreements involve a fee, usually on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Website maintenance budget

No matter how you decide to maintain your website, make sure that you fully budget for it - there will be a cost even for routine updates to your site. You will need to ensure that your website is fully backed up. You may also need an additional budget for further upgrading or redesigning of the site.

It is important to monitor how your website performs and the way visitors use it.

Performance monitoring tools

Many websites experience slow performance, outages, content errors, transaction failures, etc. To address these problems, consider using website performance monitoring tools.

These tools can:

• measure the response times of specific transactions
• pinpoint the location of bottlenecks that slow down the website (eg an application server or a network router)
• identify the causes for slow page loading speeds (eg loading too many banners, too many high-resolution graphics files, or disk space problems)

Many of the main search engines - such as Google, Bing and Yahoo - provide tips, advice and tools to help you improve the performance of your website.

Monitoring website traffic

As part of website maintenance, you should track how users find your website and what they do once they get there. Web analytics tools can help you determine:

• how many visitors click on your pages
• the dates and times each visitor accessed your site
• the individual IP (internet protocol) address of each visitor's computer
• where (what online source) did your visitor come from - eg from search, another website or social media platform
• how many pages do they visit
• which pages they spend the most time on
• the type of browser, operating system or mobile device used by each visitor

This information can help shape your content strategy, offer valuable feedback on your marketing activities, or customise features to help address visitor needs.

You can use free services - such as Google Analytics and Bing Webmaster tools to help you monitor your website traffic, or use paid-for tools offered by your web host or specialist analytics companies. These types of tools work by adding tracking codes to your website pages that collect different types of user data, including personal data such as IP addresses.

Website tracking and data protection

Data protection laws affect how you as a website owner may use tracking software to monitor your website visitors. They also affect your privacy policy and the manner in which you can obtain consent from your users for setting the cookies.

To ensure that you comply with the data protection laws, you should:

• control how you're transmitting personal data to third parties (eg from your page URLs to Google Analytics)
• use your analytics tool features to anonymise any IP data you collect
• use pseudonymous identifiers, such as User ID, hashed or encrypted data or transaction IDs
• provide transparency about the data processing on your site in your privacy information
• follow the rules on obtaining and managing consent

Find out more about the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

What is website benchmarking?

Website benchmarking helps you to see what other businesses are doing online and where your website stands in relation to others. This knowledge can help you better understand your position in the market and boost your competitive advantage.

You can benchmark, for example, your:

• website performance
• search performance
• usability performance
• marketing performance

Learn more about benchmarking and see how to benchmark your business performance.

In the past, selling online was traditionally associated with consumer-facing retail businesses. Now, a broader range of businesses is investing in e-commerce – particularly those trading with other businesses.

Invest Northern Ireland has produced a suite of video tutorials to outline how e-commerce could work for your business, and what benefits you can expect from selling your products and services online.

E-commerce introduction

This video introduces e-commerce and outlines the topics that will be discussed throughout the tutorial including online marketplaces, building an e-commerce website, digital marketing, legal and security issues and effective market research.

E-commerce research

This video discusses the importance of laying a firm foundation for creating your e-commerce website by conducting thorough market research and looking at your competitors, your products, target market, human resources and internal processes.

Online marketplaces

This video looks at online marketplaces and outlines some common ways to get your product or service in front of your customer by using online selling platforms such as eBay and Amazon. It also outlines the first things you should consider when it comes to creating your own e-commerce website.

Digital marketing and e-commerce

This video explains the vital role of digital marketing when it comes to selling your product or service online and explores search engine optimisation, paid advertising and social media marketing, and the importance of analytics.

Legal and security issues with e-commerce

The final video highlights the legal and security measures that are required when selling online to protect your business, brand and your customers. It also covers the legislation that may be relevant to your e-commerce activity.

Planning is an essential part of creating websites. It is often as important as website development itself. A good website project plan can help you:

• reduce risks and possible problems during the development
• manage your time and resources better
• keep the focus on your project goals and objectives
• carry out tasks with greater efficiency
• stick to the agreed schedule and deadlines
• improve communication with web designers and developers

Website development project plan - what to include

Before you start any work on the code of your website, you will need to think about its:

• purpose - what do you want your website to accomplish (eg find new customers, generate leads, advertise your business, sell online, etc)
• users - who will use the website, how/when will they do it, what devices will they be using to access your site
• structure - how you want to organise it, eg how users will navigate through the site and how different pages should be laid out
• design - how it will look like and be used, eg elements such as logos, menu selection, etc
• content - what information (text, image, media etc) do you want to publish on the site and who will develop, populate and maintain it
• content management system - how you will add and edit the content on your website
• domain name - what will be your domain name, ie your URL, and what you need to do to register it
• web host - who will host your website and what website hosting options will best suit your needs
• development - will you choose an off-the-shelf template to build your site, use an online tool, or commission a web developer

A good website project plan should set out:

• a task list - for every step of the website creation process
• a schedule - the timeline for the completion of tasks, testing and launch
• a budget - to cover all stages of the project (ie planning, design and development costs, any bespoke functionality you might need, as well as training, annual hosting and support costs, copywriting, etc)

Aim to create clear and detailed specifications during the planning stage. You can break them down into planning, design and development sections in your plan. It may help to include charts to visualise your timeline and milestones.

Website development project documents

You can search online for free or commercial website project plan templates, including task lists, project schedules and budget plans. Other documents that you might find helpful include:

• work breakdown structure
• feature descriptions
• responsibility assignment matrix
• risk register and response plan
• project iteration and closure reviews

See also project management templates and tools.

A domain name identifies a website's location on the internet. You should choose your domain name carefully, as it will effectively support your brand and business online.

Different types of domain names for business

There are many different types of domain names. They generally fall under one of two categories:

• generic top-level domains (gTLDs) such as .net, .com, .org, .biz and .info
• country code top-level domains such as .uk for the UK

Most UK companies choose to have domain names that end in .com or .co.uk. Some Northern Ireland businesses also use .ie as another option.

There are now hundreds of gTLDs available to register, eg .london, .company, .club, .eu. Think carefully about the geographical implications of your server and domain names, as they can affect local search results.

What is a good domain name?

When choosing a domain name, most businesses choose a name based on the name of their business or product. Your domain name should be:

• short
• easy to spell
• easy to remember
• relevant to your business or product

You should avoid choosing a domain name that:

• misuses a trade mark that belongs to another business
• misleads users into thinking you are someone else
• contains lots of dashes (eg my-new-website-business-and-shop.co.uk) - this looks unprofessional, is difficult to remember and some search engines may consider it to be spam

How to buy a domain name?

You can register a domain name through an internet service provider (ISP) or a domain registration agent. See a list of ICANN accredited registrars, registrars accredited in the UK, or registrars accredited in the EU.

You will need to pay a small fee to register your domain name. This will grant it protection for the duration of the registration period.

Domains are not forever. You can't buy a domain name outright or permanently. You will have to renew your registration annually to keep ownership of your domain name.

It is important to understand that domain names are unique. They are allocated on a first come, first served basis, so it is possible that your preferred domain is already in use. You can check if the domain of your choice is available with registrars such as Nominet.

There are many ways to plan content and information architecture for a website. Depending on the size of your site, you may use one or more tools and techniques, such as:

• sitemaps
• content inventories
• content mapping
• card sorting
• paper sketches

What are sitemaps?

Sitemap diagrams are graphic tools that can help you to:

• visualise the relationships between pages on your website
• ensure the right flow between pages
• spot gaps in content
• develop your website design around content, rather than the other way around
• encourage team collaboration and allocation of content creation
• identify potential issues that could affect content creation and project deadlines

You can draw up a sitemap in a word document, on a spreadsheet, or use one of many free tools that are available online.

See examples of sitemap documents or browse online to find more.

Content inventory tool

A content inventory can help you examine the scope and purpose of each page on the site. It can be time-consuming to create but useful if you are relaunching an existing site, as it will help you to:

• record and analyse each item of content that you have
• establish how well it performs
• segment your content types and work out how best to present them

Find out more about content inventory.

What is content mapping?

Content mapping is a visual technique that can help you plan your website content. It is a method that combines:

• an analysis of your business goals
• an assessment of your audience
• your content objectives

By carrying out these activities, you can produce content maps for your site and work out which content should feature. Content mapping can help you explore and visualise your content, and its effectiveness and root it in clearly defined business goals. You can also use simple card sorting and paper sketches to organise your content according to hierarchy. 

When choosing your method of content planning, consider the size and type of your website. For example, a laborious content mapping exercise may be excessive if you are building a simple brochure site.

When to start planning content?

Good website content takes time, a strategic approach and often many revisions. Make sure that you consider content early on in the website planning process to prevent delays and cost overruns during development.

A good website layout and a clear hierarchy are vital for the success of your project. They will help your users navigate your site and easily find the content or pages that they are looking for. Poor layout will provide a bad user experience and prevent your customers from accessing your information, services or goods.

As with content planning, certain techniques can help you with designing your website layout. The most common one is using wireframes.

What are wireframes?

Wireframes are a popular way of mapping out a website. They allow you to create a mockup - ie a skeleton of the site that shows the basic elements you intend to include.

These elements should include only the core layout, structure and organisation rather than the detailed visuals. A wireframe may comprise simply:

• labelled boxes that illustrate the overall navigation
• blocks of content that each webpage will contain

When developing your website structure, it's important to take account of web accessibility requirements, as well as your user's needs. Read about best practice in web design.

Benefits of wireframing

Wireframes are generally low-fidelity, basic and easy to understand. They are also quick and cheap to produce. You can draw a wireframe using Word, PowerPoint or Illustrator, or simply with a pencil and paper.

They are also typically very easy to change, and handy to share for feedback or fine-tune with your project team or web designers. Designers tend to use wireframes to show the navigation flow between the different screens. Developers may use them to get a better understanding of the core functionalities of the site.

What is a wireframe prototype?

Wireframes don't contain real content, so establishing the final layout of the screen may be difficult. However, wireframes often provide the basis for more functional prototypes.

Prototypes offer greater fidelity with regard to the design of your website. They provide more visual detail and can include user interaction functionality. A prototype should represent the final product as closely as possible.

You can use a prototype to test, demonstrate and validate the functionality of your website design. See how to test and launch your website.

There are many ways to build a website. Depending on your skills and budget restrictions, you can build it yourself, use templates or 'site builder' tools, or hire a web designer to build it for you.

Do-it-yourself website

Building a website from scratch is generally only an option if you have:

• good technical knowledge, especially of HTML
• a web-building application or software, such as Adobe Dreamweaver
• staff in-house who have the skills and the expertise required

HTML is the foundation of building websites. Even if you rely on web-building tools, some degree of HTML knowledge will likely be necessary to help you carry out the project. Be realistic about the skills of those involved and seek advice from IT professionals if you need it.

Use templates or 'site builder' tools

There are many great options for using templates or online tools for building websites. This method usually allows you to:

• create a website quickly and easily
• choose from thousands of themes and designs
• customise different elements, such as navigation and page layout
• use plugins for added functionality or features of the site

All you need to do is choose your template and add your content, and your website is generally ready to go. Web design or web hosting companies typically offer different packages and template options at different prices. They are usually more affordable than commissioning a designer and can include a one-off charge or monthly/annual payments.

Commission a web designer or an agency

You don't have to have a huge budget to be able to work with a web designer or an agency.

The expertise that they will bring to the project will likely be worth the extra cost, as they will be able to guide you through the whole process - from planning and idea generation to site implementation and launch.

To make sure you're happy with the results, brief the designer carefully and agree in advance on the key issues around the project. See how to choose and work with a designer.

Legal considerations

Whatever way you choose to build your website, make sure that you follow best practice in web design. Be aware of:

• web accessibility issues
• e-commerce regulations if you are selling products or services via your website
• your responsibilities under the data protection regulations, especially around issues of consent, tracking and third-party services

Your website's privacy notices, terms and conditions, subscription forms, other opt-ins and data capture processes must all comply with the data protection rules.

Website documentation

Once you decide what way you want to build your site, you will need to:

• develop key documentation for your site (eg terms and conditions, disclaimers, etc)
• disclose certain information about your company on your website

See business websites: legal requirements.

You can also use our sample IT policies, disclaimers and notices to find free templates for your business, including our UK GDPR compliant sample privacy notice.

Once you design and develop your website, you will have to carry out testing to make sure that it is ready to go live. These processes are known as 'implementation'. You will go through several phases during the implementation process.

Provide staff training

When you are getting your website ready for launch, you will need to train your staff on relevant procedures and maintenance tasks. You should encourage staff involvement and feedback, as staff buy-in can make or break a technology project.

Before arranging training for your staff, you should carry out a training and learning needs analysis to ensure that your training is cost-effective and worthwhile.

You should also consider setting up a cross-departmental task force to manage the implementation process. It will help with staff buy-in and help ensure the website is compatible with other business systems - for example, your accounts package or customer database.

Carry out system testing

Before putting the website live, you need to test it sufficiently. Poor testing or no testing is extremely risky. Errors that appear later can be expensive to correct - and may damage your business' reputation.

The main purpose of testing is to assess your website's:

• usability
• accessibility
• functionality

Testing should also look at the response times experienced by users and verify how the site functions under peak loads. It is also useful to see how easily users can access and navigate through the site across different platforms. See more on best practice in web design.

Plan the launch of your website

Decide whether to have a soft launch to existing customers or go public right away to as wide an audience as possible. Ahead of the launch, you will also need to plan:

• How you will market the site - both offline and online?
• Who will maintain the site - will you do it in-house or outsource the maintenance?
• Will your staff need any additional training to maintain the site?
• Who will manage customer feedback and any online orders?

Promote your website and engage with online customers

When you launch the site, you need to encourage existing customers to use it. Ensure that you promote the web address in your marketing material and that the website is accessible through search engines. Use search marketing techniques like search engine optimisation and pay-per-click and paid search advertising.

See also how to develop a digital marketing plan.

Maintaining your website is crucial. As a website provider, you have the responsibility to ensure that the content of your website is accurate and up-to-date and that your visitors' data is protected from misuse.

Reviewing your website

Reviewing your website regularly is the best way to ensure that your business website is up-to-date and error-free. You can schedule a review calendar or carry out ongoing checks to manage:

• your content - including spelling and grammatical errors and out-of-date information
• internal and external links - including irrelevant links, broken links or redirects
• advertising or sponsorship banners - eg merchant's links in affiliate marketing
• compliance with advertising rules, if applicable

You can use many free and paid-for tools to help you maintain your website. These tools can identify broken links, missing images, spelling mistakes and other problems that can damage user confidence and adversely affect your search engine ranking.

Updating your website

Keep your website content as up-to-date as possible. Archive any out-of-date content and make sure that you provide something new for your users to come back to. Fresh content will also help you secure better search engine ranking. If relevant, you can use user-generated content to help keep your website engaging and up-to-date. You can integrate your social media accounts to keep your website current - see more on social media best practice for business.

Content management

If your website has a lot of dynamic content that changes frequently, consider using a content management system. This software can help with collecting, arranging and managing content on a website, an intranet or an extranet.

Website maintenance options

Four main options for carrying out website maintenance are:

• Do it yourself - use tools such as WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') editors, graphics software and various online validation services to maintain your site.
• Pay for ad-hoc updates - eg to your internet service provider (ISP). This is viable if the changes are relatively infrequent. However, as your site grows it will become less cost-effective.
• Use content management software (CMS) - you can use such tools on their own or as part of a general maintenance contract. Some CMS tools are free, although there are many for which you may need to pay an annual fee or monthly cost.
• Set up a maintenance agreement - with your ISP, a website developer or a digital agency. This may suit if you need to carry out regular and frequent updates to the content, monitor activities, or patch and maintain your content management software. Maintenance agreements involve a fee, usually on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Website maintenance budget

No matter how you decide to maintain your website, make sure that you fully budget for it - there will be a cost even for routine updates to your site. You will need to ensure that your website is fully backed up. You may also need an additional budget for further upgrading or redesigning of the site.

It is important to monitor how your website performs and the way visitors use it.

Performance monitoring tools

Many websites experience slow performance, outages, content errors, transaction failures, etc. To address these problems, consider using website performance monitoring tools.

These tools can:

• measure the response times of specific transactions
• pinpoint the location of bottlenecks that slow down the website (eg an application server or a network router)
• identify the causes for slow page loading speeds (eg loading too many banners, too many high-resolution graphics files, or disk space problems)

Many of the main search engines - such as Google, Bing and Yahoo - provide tips, advice and tools to help you improve the performance of your website.

Monitoring website traffic

As part of website maintenance, you should track how users find your website and what they do once they get there. Web analytics tools can help you determine:

• how many visitors click on your pages
• the dates and times each visitor accessed your site
• the individual IP (internet protocol) address of each visitor's computer
• where (what online source) did your visitor come from - eg from search, another website or social media platform
• how many pages do they visit
• which pages they spend the most time on
• the type of browser, operating system or mobile device used by each visitor

This information can help shape your content strategy, offer valuable feedback on your marketing activities, or customise features to help address visitor needs.

You can use free services - such as Google Analytics and Bing Webmaster tools to help you monitor your website traffic, or use paid-for tools offered by your web host or specialist analytics companies. These types of tools work by adding tracking codes to your website pages that collect different types of user data, including personal data such as IP addresses.

Website tracking and data protection

Data protection laws affect how you as a website owner may use tracking software to monitor your website visitors. They also affect your privacy policy and the manner in which you can obtain consent from your users for setting the cookies.

To ensure that you comply with the data protection laws, you should:

• control how you're transmitting personal data to third parties (eg from your page URLs to Google Analytics)
• use your analytics tool features to anonymise any IP data you collect
• use pseudonymous identifiers, such as User ID, hashed or encrypted data or transaction IDs
• provide transparency about the data processing on your site in your privacy information
• follow the rules on obtaining and managing consent

Find out more about the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

What is website benchmarking?

Website benchmarking helps you to see what other businesses are doing online and where your website stands in relation to others. This knowledge can help you better understand your position in the market and boost your competitive advantage.

You can benchmark, for example, your:

• website performance
• search performance
• usability performance
• marketing performance

Learn more about benchmarking and see how to benchmark your business performance.

In the past, selling online was traditionally associated with consumer-facing retail businesses. Now, a broader range of businesses is investing in e-commerce – particularly those trading with other businesses.

Invest Northern Ireland has produced a suite of video tutorials to outline how e-commerce could work for your business, and what benefits you can expect from selling your products and services online.

E-commerce introduction

This video introduces e-commerce and outlines the topics that will be discussed throughout the tutorial including online marketplaces, building an e-commerce website, digital marketing, legal and security issues and effective market research.

E-commerce research

This video discusses the importance of laying a firm foundation for creating your e-commerce website by conducting thorough market research and looking at your competitors, your products, target market, human resources and internal processes.

Online marketplaces

This video looks at online marketplaces and outlines some common ways to get your product or service in front of your customer by using online selling platforms such as eBay and Amazon. It also outlines the first things you should consider when it comes to creating your own e-commerce website.

Digital marketing and e-commerce

This video explains the vital role of digital marketing when it comes to selling your product or service online and explores search engine optimisation, paid advertising and social media marketing, and the importance of analytics.

Legal and security issues with e-commerce

The final video highlights the legal and security measures that are required when selling online to protect your business, brand and your customers. It also covers the legislation that may be relevant to your e-commerce activity.