We at Mettro know how important it is that every business or organisation has a website to build a strong online presence.
But it is not enough to build a website just for the sake of having one. Your website is an investment. After all the time, money, and effort that you have to put into making one, you would want a website that ultimately serves your business goals and not just be a pretty brochure or contact page on the web.
What is the Purpose of your Website?
Your website must have a clear purpose from the very start. Your website’s main purpose will depend on the nature of your business or organisation but will generally fall under any of these categories.
- Sell products or services
- Generate leads
- Establish authority or brand recognition
- Promote a cause or advocate for change
- Be a content marketing tool
Your website may serve multiple purposes. But it is essential to know the main purpose of your website so that you will know what things should be on your website that you cannot do without.
What are your Goals?
Apart from establishing the purpose of your website, you must also be clear about the specific business goals that you want to accomplish through your website.
Your goals will depend on the nature of your business, your current capacity and other considerations. Here are some goals that may apply to your situation.
- Increase your monthly sales by a certain percentage
- Increase the number of your qualified leads
- Encourage more donations or get more volunteers (for a non-profit organisation)
- Implement a rebranding strategy
- Automate and streamline processes to improve efficiency and reduce costs
How we Build a Fit for Purpose Website
A website is said to be fit for purpose when it meets the requirements set by the client based on the desired outcomes.
This means that all of the website’s features and functionality must be in line with its purpose and contribute toward achieving the goals of the client. They should not be there just because it is the trendy thing at the moment.
Before we begin any project here at Mettro, we do our best to get on the same page with our clients. We work with them on a website brief detailing the goals they want to achieve with their website and all other relevant information about the company. This ensures that we will deliver a website that is fit for purpose. Our team will then go through a process of business analysis and strategy to create a specification for development of a website that will meet the client objectives.
Here are some examples of how we have strived to deliver a fit for purpose website to our clients.
Cornerstone Medical Recruitment
Cornerstone Medical Recruitment offers a personalised medical recruitment service. It aims to make the best match possible between employer and employee not only in terms of skills to job position but also workplace culture, lifestyle and personal fulfilment opportunities.
Our client already had a website but it wasn’t meeting the needs of the company. They wanted to attract more candidates from across Australia for their clients. The website also has the following issues.
- The old website was hard to update and the client had to constantly update the job listings on the website so it is essential to resolve this issue.
- They were having issues with mobile.
- The design was out-of-date.
Mettro worked closely with the client to fully understand their brand and goals. We developed a new site for Cornerstone and we were able to accomplish the following.
- With our thorough understanding of their brand, their target candidates, and clients, we designe a website that speaks to their target audience. One of the things we did in this respect is to use emotive photography that appeals to the target audience as opposed to the pure graphics used on the old website.
- We improved user experience through the following:
- simpler navigation
- a better way to search for jobs through the improved search field
- a prominent call to action that brings the user to a lead capture form
- an easy way to apply to the listed jobs through the website
- The website that we built was easy to update using am modern CMS back end, unlike the old one
- We designed a responsive, mobile-friendly website that works smoothly with all devices
- Recruitment app JobAdder integration for a seamless experience
UQ Sport
Originally established as the University of Queensland Sports and Physical Recreation Association, UQ Sport is an independent non-profit organisation that specialises in sports facility management. It is also involved in promoting sports, physical recreation, and a healthy lifestyle in the UQ Community.
Its website’s primary purpose is to encourage the people in and around campus to participate in programs and activities being offered by UQ Sports and use their facilities.
Our client approached us for a completely new website that would save the department time and money. We worked with our tech-savvy client to build a website with exceptional customer experience and maximum out-of-the-box functionality to ensure we could keep costs down. We invested time up front in user experience strategy development to ensure optimal ROI for our client and a website that their target audience would love and would ensure the best experience for all users.
Our client wanted to fit a lot into their new website, but had a strict budget to work to. What we knew about this client was that they were highly digitally savvy, so we flipped the way we worked with them to maximise their outcome.
Research comes first – Before we did anything else, we held extensive user experience workshops with our client and created detailed user personas. Then we created detailed wireframes out of user experience software, UX Pin.
With a limited budget, we ensured we didn’t overcook anything, and that we resisted the urge to fine-tune things beyond what was needed.
With multiple stakeholders on this project, so it was crucial for us to ensure everything passed all the checks and balances. Our user personas had to cover a wide range of stakeholders, meaning the site had to be functional across the board for many types of people. With a limited budget, we ensured we didn’t overcook anything, and that we resisted the urge to fine-tune things beyond what was needed. This led to us having a strong, ongoing relationship with our client.
CRC for Water Sensitive Cities
Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities is an Australian research centre that is focused on urban water management in Australia. The organisation has the following objectives:
- Research interdisciplinary responses to water problems;
- Synthesise diverse research outputs into practical solutions; and
- Influence policy, regulation, and practice to promote adoption.
The organisation’s website served as one of their vehicles for their advocacy featuring news and events related to urban water management. It also became a repository for research and case studies about managing water resources in Australia.
CRCWSC came to us with a brief to redevelop their website and enhance its capability to better support their diverse range of stakeholders.
After web audits and a series of design workshops among the stakeholders, Mettro determined that this is more than just a redevelopment project. The organisation needs to build a more progressive brand with thought leader authority at a global level and their new website should be able to reflect that.
Some issues about the website’s usability were also identified. Stakeholders have reported that it is hard to sift through the vast amount of information contained on the site.
With these things in mind, Metro developed four key strategies for the website.
- Find your voice – change the focus of communication from internal to external
- Push out – be thought leaders, create meaning, show value
- Be useful – create dynamic, connected, easy-to-find, relevant content
- Build raving fans – a strong community to support and be ambassadors
Mettro delivered a website with bespoke features and functionality to meet the needs of various stakeholders such as the following:
- Created an array of beautiful templates that met existing style guide requirements
- A custom version tracking tool that allowed the client to notify interested parties when a content item was updated via email
- A custom plugin to route system notifications through MailChimp to record the deliverability of emails
- Event system that allows users to find events near them and buy tickets
- A subscription service that allow members to keep track of projects and areas that interest them
- Fully customised user dashboard provided a feed of updates and new resources that we’re pertinent to the individual’s interest and involvement with the CRCWSC
- Created tool to allow client to plot their research and outcome documents based on geographic location
- Deep integration with client’s CRM – automatic synchronisation and management of authors and contributors as well as their user accounts
To improve searching and discovery of information from the thousands of articles, case studies and research reports, we implemented the following:
- Created a taxonomy structure that allows for in-depth categorisation of thousands of content pieces.
- The categorisation was used throughout the site to segment and create data views pertinent to specific user groups
- Created new paths of discovery to content in the site targeting different users and stakeholders
- The search tool was also improved to help users sift through relevant articles
- Google maps provided alternative way to visualise data so users can see the work going on in their local area
- Different types of users were given different levels of access. Some content and tools were restricted to CRCWSC partners or authors
Website Design Agency Brisbane
For your website development projects, it is important to partner with a web design agency that can deliver a fit for purpose website so that you can get a return on your investment.
Mettro is a proudly Queensland, independently owned and operated digital agency that has been delivering award-winning website design & development and digital marketing for over 20 years. We are dedicated to solving our client’s business problems with smart, simple digital solutions and have testimonials to prove it.
We’ve built thousands of digital solutions including apps, eCommerce websites, custom software, eLearning applications, WordPress websites and Shopify Websites.
Contact us or book a one-one-one to discuss your website design project!