An MVP (Minimally Viable Product) website is developed with minimal features to satisfy early adopters. The rest of the features are built into the website after receiving feedback from the initial website users.
There are many benefits of using an MVP approach to launch or relaunch a website. If you’re not sure what some of the top advantages are, check out the article, Importance Of MVP Websites: 3 Iterative Development Advantages.
However, if you’re considering MVP website development, there are three things you should do before you begin.
1. Get Stakeholder Agreement
All your internal stakeholders (marketing, sales, etc.) must completely agree on your brand positioning. Or, if your company is rebranding, stakeholders must agree that the purpose of your MVP website is to test your positioning, messaging and onsite experience. It can work either way, just make sure the stakeholders are aligned based on what’s best for your organization.Without internal stakeholder agreement, the best-planned project can swiftly go off the rails.
2. Recognize That SEO Is More Important Than Functionality
This is true, regardless of industry. Why? Because people are people–in B2B and B2C. There is an overwhelming amount of data that supports a person’s natural behavior is to search whenever there is a question. Your target audience must first find your website before they can explore your products, services and solutions.
But don’t forget about search engines. You want to make sure your MVP website is readable by both humans and crawlers. The technical structure of you MVP website can have a huge impact on performance. So make sure you consider the mobile experience, responsive design, redirects, error pages, no follows, and URL and link structure.
SEO is increasingly more important as its applications become more diverse, encompassing local, voice, image, video and position zero search. Don’t focus your efforts on functionality until your searchability is top-notch.
3. Understand The Role Of Your MVP Website
Your company website is a critical resource for your business. That’s why it’s important to understand the role it plays in your customer journey. Only then can you optimize your MVP website to help turn leads into customers. But your company website also serves a purpose for internal sales teams, operations, customer service associates and more. Understand who else uses it, how and why. This will enable you to create the most effective business tool to increase productivity, improve customer service, recruit talent, save money on print collateral or many other functions.
In her previous role as Vice President of Technology, Tessa helped clients execute engaging, multi-platform experiences and products to bring their brands to life. Moving into her role as CTO, Tessa oversees Mod Op’s technology stack to ensure the agency is leveraging the right platforms to deliver valuable and measurable marketing communications, entertainment and experiences.
Tessa Burg, Chief Technology Officer