Do you want your website to be delivered faster, come under budget, provide better outcomes, and improve user experience? Lay stress on the discovery phase. This blog talks about the importance of the website discovery phase and how you can leverage it to make your site successful.
Yes, a breakthrough idea can take your website to a whole new level, but an idea alone can’t do everything to make your website a big hit in the market. It’s crucial to understand — what problems you can address, who are your target customers, whether the website will genuinely add value or not, and various other key factors.
This is why planning the website discovery phase is a pivotal part of the website’s success. It bridges the gap between a concept and its realization to define success.
Amid today’s fierce competition and ever-changing customer demands, 9 out of 10 businesses fail because of the market unfit solution. The secrecy behind 10% of businesses’ survival is laying stress on the discovery phase.
If you ask any experienced website consultant, by far the most important part of the website development process is planning the website discovery phase. In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that every successful project begins with a discovery phase.
So without any further ado, let’s dive into the importance of the website discovery phase. But before that, we would like you to know about the ins and outs of the discovery phase in website development.
Are you ready to dive right in? Let’s go!
What Is the Website Discovery Phase, Exactly?
A website discovery phase is all about researching and defining the scope of the website. The discovery phase is the initial step of website development. It’s aimed to collect information about the website to identify its vision, goals, and scope.
If you’re planning the website discovery phase (the right way), it can help you better identify website scope and goals, make decisions based on data, and not assumptions, create a user-centered experience, and ensure a higher ROI.
The Role of Discovery Phase in Website Development
Straightforwardly speaking, the website discovery phase involves activities such as carrying out user research, establishing goals and defining success, outline the value proposition and understand the broader context.
Besides, the first and foremost aim of the website discovery phase is to foresee and eliminate the risks, including lack of market demand, unexpected expenses, and the possibility of not being able to pay for them. The discovery phase not only clarifies the objectives but also allows you to develop a website that meets your directives.
Unfortunately, the website discovery phase is often overlooked by many, resulting in more expenses and misguided development. A renowned web design and development company often agrees that if the requirements are identified early on in the project cycle, this would result in reducing the project schedule and/or budget.
It is often seen that mistakes made during the planning stage are the most expensive to fix later. That’s where the discovery phase comes in. It tests your ideas and implementation strategies, optimizing the web development cost and speed of web launches.
What Are the Elements of a Successful Website Discovery Phase?
As mentioned earlier, planning the website discovery phase consists typically of — carrying out user research, establishing goals and defining success, outlining the value proposition, and lastly, understanding the broader context. Let’s understand each of them more closely. What say?
->Carrying Out User Research – You need to think about users’ goals, pain points, preferences, interests, and so much more while carrying out user research. Customer journey mapping is the right way to perform this successfully.
->Establishing Goals and Defining Success – Without clear goals and definitions of success, your website will fall flat. The ultimate way of defining success is whether it generates an ROI. You also need to consider how to measure the success criteria.
->Outlining the Value Proposition – The focus of the value proposition varies slightly depending on the type of website. The website discovery phase should define two aspects of the value proposition — the benefits it provides and the features that allow it to deliver those benefits.
->Understanding the Broader Context – Including internal considerations, reviews of existing related services, competitive landscape, and influencers usually define the broader context. Failing to consider the larger context at all will often lead to issues further down the line.
Why Should You Emphasize the Website Discovery Phase to Succeed? 5 Crucial Reasons
Establishes Business Goals
The discovery phase helps you identify the website’s scope, website’s requirements, and of course, business goals. It helps you research and defines the overall scope of the website. It’s critical to stick to these objectives throughout the web development process and keep them in mind while making any type of changes to the website.
Leads to Better Solutions
The discovery phase of a website gives you an opportunity to understand the project in a better way. Once your hired growth agency understands the requirements, they can actually suggest better solutions that can lead to better results in the future. All in all, the discovery phase leads businesses to optimum solutions.
Focuses on Objectives and Not Just on Deliverables
A website built within the budget and on time doesn’t guarantee success. Success is where the website is built, delivers on bigger goals like increasing leads, conversions, and ultimately sales. With the discovery phase of a website, you get a clear vision, goals, and scope. Therefore, lets you focus on objectives and not just deliverables.
Data-Driven
As the website discovery phase dives deeper and looks at your current site’s performance, including architecture, user experience, analytics, SEO, and more, it will allow you to develop more relevant solutions based on gathered data for optimum output. Therefore, your website will be more engagement-driven and conversion-oriented.
Avoids Project Scope and Extra Cost
This is one of the most significant reasons for making the web discovery phase a part of your website development. Once you have a clear map in mind, you don’t need to spend extra money on the website development process. That being said, the discovery phase of a website eliminates any extra costs or changing the scope of a project once it is underway.
In Conclusion
The website discovery phase helps you build a strong foundation for your website, yet it is often overlooked by many. However, the real value of a discovery phase can make your website go above and beyond normal. If leveraged the right way, the discovery phase can empower and inform, leading to your website’s success.
So what are you waiting for? Lay stress on the website discovery phase, define the goals of your website, the needs of your customers, plan the budget, and build a well-planned website.
Write A Review