Creating a Site Development Plan
Guidelines for Implementing and Expanding your Online Community
Use this document to create a plan for driving the future management and expansion of
your online community. Although the document contains terminology specific to
NetCommunity®, the concepts and fundamental functions can be applied to your
organization’s online system.
The best practices we’ve included form a conservative approach to site development that
allows adequate time for workload adjustments and resource scheduling.
This document is divided into the following sections, each representing a stage in site
development:
Launch/Health Check ..............................................................2
1-3 Months ...............................................................................3
3-6 Months ...............................................................................4
6-9 Months ...............................................................................5
9-12 Months .............................................................................6
12-18 Months ...........................................................................7
General Guidelines
When creating your site development plan, take into account the following:

Your organization’s online/communications strategy and how your online system fits into
this. This includes your organization’s policies for engaging with supporters online and
the handling of personal data.

Your goals for the site, for example those related to online fundraising, learning about
and engaging with your supporters, and encouraging them to network with one another.
Your goals might also include numerical measures of success, such as “1,000 new online
donors by end of this fiscal year”.

Availability of staff time and resources to reach your these goals.

Product and system capabilities (and limitations). This includes the ability of your
onsite/offsite network architecture to handle what you are asking of it.

Resources and provision for regular administrative tasks, including the monitoring of end
user experience and system troubleshooting.
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Creating a Site Development Plan
Launch/Health Check
Best practices
At the time a site is launched, be it through publicizing the address of the site or providing a
link from another site, it must be ready to receive visitor traffic with content that is errorfree, relevant and just enough to spark the interest of repeat visitors.
If a site is already live and its development is being considered for the first time, priorities
during a health check will be to review usability, ensure key pathflows are error free and
content is up to date.
Complete the table below for all content that the site will launch with or key tasks that need
to be accomplished as part of a site health check, whichever is applicable.
Under New Content list the pages and features that your site will launch with. In the
‘Content/Parts’ column list the individual components of the new features.
Example (NetCommunity):
Area/Page
Content/Parts
New Content
User Profile Form Part
 Profile Page
 Biographical
 Address
 Spouse
 User Account
User Interests Part
 Populate Interests Attribute Table in Raiser’s Edge
 Select Table values to enable in form
Under Maintenance & Usability list the items you need to take care of to check that key
content and user pathflows are error free. Under Integration list those elements of New
Content that will impact downloading of information to Raiser’s Edge (or other integrated
system). For example, when building and testing a new User Profile Form Part in
NetCommunity you’ll also need to test the downloading of a profile update into Raiser’s
Edge and make sure that staff responsible for downloading transactions understand the
changes that will be made to their processes.
LAUNCH/HEALTH CHECK
Area/Page
Content/Parts
New Content
Item/Part
 Page
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Maintenance & Usability
Task
 Key Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Integration
Task
 Key Task
 Details
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Creating a Site Development Plan
1-3 Months
Best practices
Within the first 3 months of launching a site, staff time and resources are likely to be
dominated by day to day management of new user registrations and processing
transactions in Raiser’s Edge. During this time, development of the site can focus on
enabling some of the parts/features that are easier to build and expanding on existing
content.
If your site is already live the first quarter of development focuses on analyzing site activity
and testing and enabling new content.
List below the items planned for the first 1-3 months. For example, maintenance and
usability might include checking that new user pathflows are still functioning correctly after
launch. Analysis will include making use of your programs reporting functions. For example,
in NetCommunity you will set up a page where you can place and view the Web Traffic
Reports part.
1 – 3 MONTHS
Area/Page
New Content
 Page
Maintenance & Usability
 Key Task
Integration
 Key Task
Analysis

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Content/Parts
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
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Creating a Site Development Plan
3-6 Months
Best practices
Within 6 months of launching the site or performing a health check, the daily tasks
necessary to manage it should have settled to reasonable levels, freeing up staff time and
resources to develop the content and maintain its ‘fresh’ appearance for repeat visitors. This
is a good time to start building targeted content for different roles of site visitor, as a fair
number of users should now be registered on the site.
An easy way to keep the site fresh is to keep homepage content up to date. For example, in
NetCommunity by swapping out an existing Poll for a new one and updating news headlines
in a Formatted Text & Images part.
This is also a good time to revisit your Privacy Policy to make sure it is up to date and takes
into account any new site features that involve gathering user data. For example, if you’re
building and testing a donation form during this quarter, make sure the site’s published
Privacy Policy tells donors what happens to the information they provide.
3 – 6 MONTHS
Area/Page
New Content
 Page
Maintenance & Usability
 Key Task
Integration
 Key Task
Analysis

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Content/Parts
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
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Creating a Site Development Plan
6-9 Months
Best practices
Within 9 months after site launch, efforts can be focused on refining existing content, such
as donation forms for different groups of visitors and expanding the use of Targeted Content
on the homepage. Targeted content and tailored donation forms can be developed at this
time to customize the experience of different types of logged in site visitors.
Within 6-9 months of a site health check, larger scale development can be tested and
implemented, such as the rolling out of a Membership form or Personal Pages. These parts
can take considerable time to implement. If planned and built at 6 months you could expect
the content to be live by 9 months.
6 – 9 MONTHS
Area/Page
New Content
 Page
Maintenance & Usability
 Key Task
Integration
 Key Task
Analysis

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Content/Parts
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
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Creating a Site Development Plan
9-12 Months
Best practices
By the end of the first year of your website’s launch, you will be likely needing to assess its
progress and measure its success rather than developing content. This goes for sites one
year after a health check as well. You’ll be keen to measure the success of your site
compared to a year ago and plan development for the upcoming year.
Besides ongoing maintenance of homepage content, Targeted Content and the Privacy
Policy, the web traffic and email reports become particularly useful at this time for gauging
the usage and performance of your site. Draw site traffic information from your
administrator page reports and Google Analytics to analyze the success of your site after its
first year of activity. Identifying which areas of your site attracted the most attention will
help inform your plans for site development in the coming year.
Disable any content that is now out of date, for example removing links to pages about
Events that have been and gone and update news headlines to report on the success of
completed events. Do not delete content from Site Explorer that will be helpful as a
reference when creating content for new events in the upcoming year.
9 – 12 MONTHS
Area/Page
New Content
 Page
Maintenance & Usability
 Key Task
Integration
 Key Task
Analysis

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Content/Parts
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
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Creating a Site Development Plan
12-18 Months
Best practices
A year after launching the site, you may find that a new product version has been released
that will provide useful functionality for you. You can also take advantage of putting to use
the skills gained in site management to build out existing unused content. For example, in
NetCommunity this could be User Networking, Document sharing, Giving Histories and
Directories. These parts really benefit from having at least several hundred active site users,
hence it can be wise to wait until the site is mature before developing them.
Review product updates to identify what must be implemented and those updates which
enable new site enhancements and functionality. Also review your existing content and
identify which parts not currently in use may enhance pages or provide you with useful data
from site visitors.
12–18 MONTHS
Area/Page
New Content
 Page
Maintenance & Usability
 Key Task
Integration
 Key Task
Analysis

Content/Parts
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Item/Part
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Task
 Details
Finally, during this time also revise and update this plan, scheduling development for the
coming year. Make sure that maintenance and administrative tasks are included at regular
intervals to avoid crises and keep your site humming smoothly.
Originally prepared by Heller Consulting, Inc. Heller Consulting requests that this document not be shared with
other organizations or posted to public forums. For the benefit of your organization, this document is open to
editing. However, any changes made to this document after original development may not necessarily reflect the
recommendations of Heller Consulting.
info@teamheller.com | www.teamheller.com
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