What clients use us for

Our clients are characterised by the size and sophistication of their web estates. This normally means they are large, but organisations of any size that have a heavy reliance on online strategy – such as publishers – have also made good use of us.

We have been brought in at four stages of a web presence’s lifecycle: before a major relaunch; during redevelopment; after relaunch; and at any time to tackle specific issues or measure effectiveness against peers.

We have been used

Before relaunch to

• Establish whether the site should be upgraded or completely redeveloped.

• Develop an online strategy, leading right up the point of build. This includes needs analysis, best practice identification, benchmarking and strategy creation.

• Benchmark a site, both to provide a marker against which to measure improvement and to identify relevant best practice within and outside the industry.

• Identify best practice to find out how organisations should be exploiting the web. This is particularly relevant for companies, such as publishers, where it is fast becoming a key part of strategy.

• Provide ‘blue sky’ thinking, usually combined with brainstorming, to ensure that the client is taking full advantage of future as well as current developments in the online world.

• Sell the need for change ‘upwards’ in an organisation, normally through presentations, typically drawing on other projects such as benchmarks to provide supporting evidence.

During redevelopment to

• Monitor progress, by, for example, examining the site once it has reached ‘wireframe’ stage (architecture set but no visuals).

• Produce a newsletter as an internal communication tool, to help and encourage site owners around the world as they migrate onto a new platform. As writers and former publishers, we have the capability to produce high quality electronic or paper publications.

• Run regular ‘light’ benchmarks to monitor redevelopment progress and to provide independently-judged key performance indicators for the client.

After relaunch to

• Run a benchmark to ensure the site matches up to its competitors and best practice and that it works as smoothly as it should. This may be standalone, or as a follow-up to a pre-relaunch benchmark.

At any time to

• Tackle specific issues. For example, to find best practice in a particular area, to benchmark a particular section or to examine how well a particular issue is being tackled.

• Carry out a ‘health check’ on a site, usually by using a benchmark.

• Advise on website governance. For example, we have helped design a questionnaire to ensure quality across a very large web estate.

• Facilitate contact between people with similar needs. We hold well-attended meetings for people responsible for corporate and other large websites , and act as a hub if they wish to contact one another. Meetings are quarterly in London, occassionally in other European cities and, later in 2008, the USA.