Website Request For Proposal (RFP)—Invaluable

Why do website projects fail or fall short of expectations?

Many businesses have the experience of their last website project taking far too long to complete, going over budget and in the end just did not measure up to expectations.

It's easy to blame the website developer who did the work, but often poor communication and a lack of project details before starting the project is the real problem.

A brief wish list or a verbal description to a web developer of what you want or expect with your website redesign is not a good approach. Too little detail from the client puts too much control over the outcome of the project in the web developer's hands.

The value of a RFP

On the other hand, if you create a Request for Proposal (RFP), and detail all aspects of your project, including goals, expectations as well as specific problems with the website you are wanting to remedy, you are establishing clearly what your concerns, expectations and needs are for the project.

Your web developer will then respond to the RFP with a detailed proposal that addresses all our RFP details. Also, An RFP will make it easier for you to get several proposals or bids as one RFP document can be shared with several potential vendors.

While the process of creating a detailed Request For Proposal can be time consuming, it is usually the best way of communicating with potential website developers exactly what your expectations are for the project and will help to give them all the background information they need in order to accurately price the website redesign.

What is an RFP?

In simple terms, a Request For Proposal or RFP, is your request for a detailed proposal from one or more project vendors. But more importantly, it’s an opportunity to put in writing your website needs, goals, vision and to tell potential vendors what specifically you need their help with.

An RFP allows you to describe what you need to change about your website, from specific tasks such as replacing static page updating with a content manager, to making the pages easier to navigate, to suggesting general design goals to make your site resonate with a specific audience or have your site more easily found by search engines.

Ideally, an RFP will have the following:

- An overview of your business or organization
- An overview of how the website is currently being utilized
- An overview of what is lacking or not working well
- Your vision of what the website should be
- Your expectations for what a proposal should include

Do your homework first

Redesigning a website is more than giving the website a graphic “face lift.”

Overhauling or redesigning your website is an opportunity to include additional features and capabilities and to fix what isn’t working—including search engine optimization, poor navigation and a lackluster design that does not invite customers back.

Before drafting a simple RFP, meet with several staff members or fellow employees and make a list of what are the shortcomings of your current website. Ask everyone the following:

- What aspects of the website have customers and staff complained about?
- Is the website difficult or time-consuming to update?
- How does the website fit in with your current marketing plans?
- Are there new capabilities you would like the website to have such as polls, knowledge base or surveys?

Next, prioritize the your list into two groups. Group one would be, “Must have’s—that which we can't live without.” Group two would be, “It would be nice if—things that will make our jobs easier.”

Having your website Requirements grouped will make it easier to decide what items you're willing to budget for now, and what may need to wait for a later date.

In addition to talking to your staff, it is a good idea to ask your customers what they like or don't like about your website. Many great suggestions for improvements will come from those who use your website frequently, and it's a great way to show your customers you care enough about them to include them in your website redesign process.

Expectations of your vendors

An RFP is also your opportunity to discuss what your expectations are for a vendor, in terms of reviews, status updates, references and working on similar types of projects.

If you are in a time crunch and need a major redesign of your site in a couple of weeks, your project may be better suited for a larger vendor who has some excess capacity.

If you only want to consider a vendor who has experience with your industry, clearly state this in your RFP.

Some questions you should ask yourself:

- Are you expecting your website vendor to manage the project or will you provide some project management?
- Who will determine the project's time-frame for completion?
- Who determines what progress has been made throughout the project?
- What are the project milestones?

If you are expecting your website vendor to do all these things, make sure you state this in your RFP so potential vendors know what is expected of them when creating the budget for the project.

Finding a website designer

Finding a great website designer—someone who is both creative and technically competent, can be a challenge.

Ideally, a recommendation by a colleague or another company you are working with who has first-hand knowledge of what it is like to work with the designer is best.

A Google search will yield hundreds if not thousands of vendors in and around your area, and it is very time consuming to try and locate and evaluate all that are in your area.

One approach is to first go through a list of ten candidates, looking first at portfolios to see if you like the range of work by the designer or company.

Next, try to determine if your project is suitable for the candidate. If a candidate looks to be producing mostly smaller website projects and your website project is a large project with hundreds of pages, you may want to consider a company with the capacity and technical expertise you require.

Narrow your list down to no more than five candidates and call each company, evaluating how each company handles your initial call. If you get voice mail and no one calls you back for several days, this is not a good sign you will receive good customer service throughout the project.

When you do reach a candidate, explain who you are and that you are looking for website designer. More than likely they will ask if you have an RFP or at least some sort of requirements document. This can be emailed.

Comparing Proposals

If you solicit proposals from several companies, you will get proposals that may seem similar, but which may be very different once you get into the details.

When evaluating proposals, you need to determine which proposals demonstrate that the website vendor has actually read and understood your RFP.

If you spot proposals that seem to be boilerplate productions, move on to the proposals that are detailed and address all your website re-design issues outlined in your RFP.

Consider a two-step process for proposal selection. Often you will get several proposals with very different approaches in terms of website architecture and technical solutions.

Proposal Follow Up

After reviewing and choosing between a number of proposals, invite three of the strongest potential candidates in for an opportunity to meet the principals of the company and to have your staff ask each vendor questions about their proposal, their methodology and how they will deal with problems that may arise, or call each prospective website vendor and talk about the project.

While technical expertise is a big part of a website project's success, communication between everyone involved in the project is extremely important.

While it is not exactly the same as hiring an employee, you should check out a potential vendor's references and see what others say about the vendor you are considering.

Proposal Pricing and Your Budget

Proposals from several vendors will probably vary greatly in price.

There are several reasons for this. There is no one standard pricing formula for website development and different vendors will have different rates.

Provided all the proposals you have received take the same approach and are an apples to apple comparison with each other, you should be most concerned with the highest and lowest priced proposals.

While the lowest priced proposal may seem like the best use of your budget, has the vendor accurately quoted the work or have they cut corners in their methodology in order to reduce the price?

On the other hand, paying far more for a project than is needed can be wasteful, especially when every marketing dollar must count.