Many businesses today rely on their website for much more than they realize. Not only does it serve as a way to inform the public about products and services, but it also serves as a communication tool for employees, clients, and new business leads. To handle the increase in new business information, many large organizations are looking into enterprise website development. In this article, we will discuss what an enterprise website design is and why it might be a good investment to consider for your business.
What is enterprise website development?
Enterprise website development is a type of development created for a variety of mid-to large-scale business organizations, such as government entities, financial institutions, nonprofit organizations, and more. Because these organizations are larger in size, they require a higher level of development when it comes to their website content and back end structure.
What are the content management requirements?
One of the main components that separates enterprise website development from other types of websites is the ECM (enterprise content management system) component. The CMS system for an enterprise website design is likely to have multiple tool integrations since the organization is more complex. The brand will also likely want to incorporate different marketing and lead generation tools to help drive traffic and develop new business opportunities.
What types of businesses use enterprise website development?
The types of businesses that would seek enterprise website design usually have a more complicated internal structure, such as multiple departments, a diverse level of service offerings, or a high number of clients. Therefore, the website needs to serve as a way to accomplish multiple internal tasks for the business as opposed to just a consumer-focused site that just sells products directly.
What are enterprise website design requirements?
The development process for an enterprise website is usually very detailed and involves a high level of collaboration with both the website developer and the business itself to create a website platform that integrates the necessary tools needed for internal business communication and operation.
Some of these business processes might include:
- Communication between employees and clients
- Accepting new business inquiries
- Processing orders directly from the website
- Creation of value through informative content such as blogs, videos, or testimonials
- Driving new traffic through search engine optimization
- Analysis of current business traffic and other important metrics
To advance these business processes, an enterprise website development project might include the following components:
- Search engine optimization
- Analytics and research tools
- Storage management for media and business files
- Software integration
- Content editing features
Enterprise website development also calls for the ability to adapt to any new business needs or requirements. As a business grows there could be changes in operations or structure. An enterprise website is built on a powerful platform that will allow it to handle any new platform changes required (through assistance from a website maintenance team) without compromising the website speed or user experience. Some examples of website platforms that are utilized for enterprise website design include Drupal and WordPress.
How does a business prepare for an enterprise website development project?
Before beginning an enterprise website development project, there usually is a research and development component that allows the development team to best understand the internal structure and needs of the business.
This research phase might involve different tasks such as:
- Internal surveys of company employees
- Data analysis of current website traffic
- Website auditing for search engine optimization, performance, and security
Once the initial research phase is complete, the actual design and development phase of the project might include:
- Content reorganization and site mapping
- Data migration to a new CMS platform
- Database creation
- Fixing any broken links
- Optimization of the website for search engine use
- UI and UX design strategy
- Analytics/ custom dashboard setup
- Responsive design
To fully realize the benefits of the enterprise website development process, a business may also want to consider different branding or integrating marketing tools into the website design such as:
- New logo or branding design
- New website photography or corporate headshots
- Integration of new communication tools such as a blog or media gallery
- Conversion optimization
- Brand analysis
5 reasons enterprise website design can help grow your business
The main reason to consider a website development project is that it gives the business an opportunity to grow through better online communication and more efficient operation. Some of the components of enterprise website design that support business growth include:
1. A better Layout and Content Strategy
A well designed website helps visitors find the information that they need in a quick and efficient way. For a large scale organization, it can be difficult to present content in a way that is user friendly. An effective website redesign will help a business present content in a way that is simple to navigate and facilitate finding important information quickly.
2. Helps Drive Traffic and New Business Leads
An enterprise website development project also involves implementation of a lead generation strategy through website communication and search engine optimization methods. This might include a keyword strategy to help drive traffic from search engines, or integration of new landing pages that help convert customers into qualified business leads. An enterprise website design allows for these additional components to be easily integrated into the website to make it a traffic-driving powerhouse.
3. Better User Experience
User experience plays a major role in a business’s lead generation strategy. Confusing, slow loading websites can contribute to poor business metrics such as high bounce rate and loss of traffic. But by creating a better user experience (through a well-performing, responsive website), a business can increase time spent on its website, leading to more business opportunities and long-term growth.
4. Content That Attracts and Engages
A new website design also allows a business to present content in a more informative and engaging way. An enterprise website can integrate new methods of content presentation — through custom layout changes or integration of a business blog — that allow a business to connect with customers and provide value.
5. Analytics Tracking
One of the best ways for a business to grow is to understand the analytic data behind their website traffic. Enterprise website design allows for the ability to integrate new tools to track different customer data points, such as visitor demographics, buying behavior, and website interaction. By having insight into these metrics, businesses can adapt and tweak their communication strategy to augment their performance.
How important is user experience in Enterprise Website Development?
When it comes to enterprise website development you will want to consider your visitors first and foremost as a way to create a great user experience. When beginning your enterprise web development project, first consider your user personas- what are their needs, interests, and intent when visiting your website? Where are they commonly located, what is their age, gender and profession? By understanding more about your visitors, you can present your enterprise website content in a way that attracts and engages them based on these needs and interests.
What are some must-have features of an enterprise website?
- User friendly- Enterprise websites are often complex, so the layout and design should be easy to navigate and find important pieces of content easily.
- Scalability- Enterprise websites should be developed in a way that is scalable and allows content to be added as a business grows over time. Therefore, an enterprise website should be custom built with a good content management system by the web developer that allows administrators the ability to add or alter content on a regular basis.
- Well performing- Due to the amount of content on an enterprise website, it will need to perform well. Therefore, a good hosting provider should be selected to ensure visitors can properly access all content without experiencing any lags in page loading times.
- Highly secure- Enterprise websites often contain content that is in need of a high level of security. Therefore the web developer should ensure that the enterprise website is built on a highly secure platform that allows access to certain pieces of information to trusted individuals. All information will also need to be backed up on a regular basis to avoid any theft or loss of content.
How might my business benefit from an enterprise website design?
Enterprise websites can offer numerous benefits for larger, more complex businesses including the following:
- A robust and scalable content management system that offers a number of tools to more effectively operate your business
- A professional website design that helps provide accurate representation of your brand image
- Improved search engine rankings from optimization of certain website elements and ability to include content to assist in generation of more business leads
- A unified workflow that allows for better communication between all business individuals such as administrators, marketers, editors and executives
What Questions should I ask when beginning an enterprise website development project?
Enterprise website development projects are usually pretty complex and require a high level of attention to detail since they are built for large scale businesses with quite a bit of website content. Therefore it is important to make sure that the development team you choose for the project has a good amount of previous experience working on enterprise websites.
Below are a few questions to ask a website development team:
- How much previous experience do you have working on enterprise website development for medium to large scale businesses?
- What is the average turnaround time for project completion of your enterprise website development projects?
- What types of industries have you worked with in the past on an enterprise website design? Do you have any samples of these projects that you can share?
- What do the initial planning stages look like for enterprise websites?
- What does communication look like for your clients throughout the project in terms of development and design decisions?
What does an enterprise website design process look like?
- Planning and research phase- This phase of the enterprise website development process will consider business goals and opportunities, research and analysis of all competitors, and taking a look into any current visitation to generate some strategies for new lead generation and improved online conversion rates.
- Website content strategy and organization- Since enterprise websites are very complex, this stage will consist of creating a roadmap for the design to determine how to best organize all pages and content in a way that is organized and user friendly.
- Content review- This stage involves revision of any current website content and writing of any additional content through communication with website administrators and key stakeholders that will be added to the new enterprise website design
- Wireframing and Visual Design preparation- This stage involves planning of all visual components such as website imagery and page layouts
- Website development and database setup- This stage is where most of the development processes begin, including migration of any current website content to a new CRM system to allow for more streamlined website administration.
- Testing and analysis- One of the final stages, this involves testing the functionality of the enterprise website to ensure all of its features work correctly
- Website launch and long term maintenance- An enterprise website should be evolving on a continual basis to ensure it remains relevant and continues to offer a great user experience.
Have questions regarding your next enterprise website development project? Alliance Interactive is a digital web design, web development, and website maintenance agency for nonprofits, associations, B2B organizations, and more. Give us a call today at 888-222-9056 or contact us here.