The discovery phase is crucial to building your new website as it establishes a foundation for the future decisions you will make.
You’ll need to bring together graphics and technical experts (that’s us), plus good writers and content experts, members of your communication or municipal marketing office, employees who are familiar with your audiences.
The Adaption and Design phase is where the QScend Design Team will go through all of the small details with you to ensure that your design reflects your municipality. Some of the questions you want to start thinking about are:
- Does your municipality have any branding or positioning that needs to be incorporated into the website?
- Are there marketing slogans, seals, or logos that should be included?
- Are there municipal landmarks or scenery that should be incorporated? Are there photographs of the town or city leadership that should be worked in?
- Are there certain colors that should be used, or not used, in the design?
- Does the name of the municipality need to be in a certain font to match other marketing and promotional pieces?
We will train the administrators first using a distance learning option. Depending on which “Q” products you’ve purchased, we’ll discuss how to: - Enter users in QCore™ and create groups
- Grant folder and page permissions in QContent™
- Set folder approvers in QContent™
- Set calendar access in QScheduler™
- Set poll and survey permissions in QPolling™, and,
- Set email list permission in QNotify™
Getting Ready to Go Live
Before your new website goes live, your Design Team, or your website administrators, need to review the site one last time, making sure that all content appears as it should in relation to your municipality’s style guide and that all forms and functionality work as they should. At this point, A day or two before your go live date, the QScend Design Team will complete its final task of the project by arranging for domain registration or transfer. Once that happens, usually within 24 to 48 hours, your new website will be available to the public.
Regardless of the amount of time you spend designing and building your website, it will only be as good as the amount of use it gets. This is a big project that you’re just completing, and your citizens need to know what will be available to them. Simply putting your new website “out there” will not automatically result in traffic. You’ll need to be persistent when taking steps to gain visibility. QScend will assist you in promoting your new site and making the most of your launch!
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