Learning how to design a web page or MVP website could be one of the best things you can do as a site creator in today’s digital world.
In a fast-paced landscape, where customer preferences and technology are constantly changing, most companies don’t have the time to dedicate months or years to each web project. The longer you take to complete your website, the more likely your creation will be out of date by the time you hit “publish.” That’s why countless creators are starting to take a different approach.
To avoid wasting time, money and effort on something that doesn’t provide a significant return on investment, designers are building “Minimum Viable Products,” or “MVPs.”
Here’s what you need to know about creating your MVP webpage.
What is a Web Design MVP?
Typically, the “MVP” development process is the most common in the world of app or software creation. It refers to when a developer builds the simplest version of a technology capable of achieving specific goals. For example, if a company wanted to create an e-commerce app, they would design a simple tool that would be able to list products, enable payments and track orders.
After launching the MVP product, the company or developer would check to ensure that it had the right impact on the target market and generated positive results. By using feedback and analytics, the developer would start adding new features one after the other.
MVP design aims to ensure that you are developing the best and most valuable product for your audience while getting your solution to market as quickly as possible.
The same strategy in app design and MVP software can also apply to website creation. Rather than creating a very complex website with multiple features right away, the designer would focus on creating a single page that would contain the necessary elements.
For example, instead of building an entire site for your online course, you can develop a one-page website where customers can learn about the system, register and pay for their membership. The best thing about an MVP web page is that it allows companies to quickly advertise their product or service, with minimal initial investment.
How to Create an MVP Web Page
Creating an MVP webpage is similar to designing any Minimum Viable Product. Throughout the project, the focus will be on keeping the development process simple and gathering as much feedback as possible.
This is how you would start an MVP web page.
Step 1: Planning
Planning is an important step in any web design project. It’s critical in the MVP landscape, where you need to define the most important aspects of your web page or website to make sure it’s “viable” for your needs. The initial planning phase can sometimes be the longest part of the process, depending on how much research you need to do.
For the most part, web designers and companies will start by doing market research. This means examining key concepts intended to drive your strategy, such as:
- Your target audience: Who are you trying to target with this web page, and what will they need from your site? A user persona can be helpful if you don’t already have one.
- competitors: Who are your main competitors in this space, and what do their web pages offer? What features do you need to replicate or avoid?
- Goals: What is the main purpose of this web page? What do you need to do, and what could it be to do in the future?
The key to MVP web page planning is to make sure you look at your project holistically without thinking too far ahead. The site you create should be able to scale and expand in the future, but it shouldn’t have too many features from day one.
Step 2: Creating Your Feature List
Once you’ve done your research and formed the basis of your plan, it’s time to list all the features your webpage MVP needs. Unfortunately, this is where the process can get a little complicated. It’s easy to start adding capabilities and components that aren’t necessary to make your site more exciting or competitive.
As worrying as it may feel to release a very basic web page, remember that your focus is on rapid growth and development. With this in mind, aim to narrow your feature lists down to:
- Required initial abilities: First, decide what your web page cannot be successful without. If your page’s primary goal is to sell software subscriptions, you’ll need to implement tools to collect member information and payments.
- Next step functionality: Think about the features you could add once your web page is confirmed to be effective. This will allow you to ensure that you are creating a platform that can expand to meet future needs.
- Possible future requirements: You can also list features that might be helpful in the future but don’t need to be implemented right away. For example, if you’re selling an online course, you might create a separate page where people can sign up to learn about future lessons.
Step 3: Find the Right Software
Next, you will need to decide how to build your web page. There are several options available to today’s designers. An open source solution is usually the best way for designers who need to create something specific from scratch. However, if the factor that makes your solution “viable” is unique, you may need access to code to bring your idea to life.
Alternatively, if you’re building a basic web page that can do something like collect customer email addresses or facilitate transactions, you might be able to use an off-the-shelf tool. CMS services for web designers can reduce the work and cost of creating a viable minimum product.
For example, you might use a tool like Wix or Squarespace to edit an existing template and simply drag and drop the elements you want into the right places. On the other hand, if you’re planning to add more functionality to your site down the line, it’s worth checking that any builder you use has the right level of flexibility. Many tools will allow you to access code, advanced features, and essential functions of a module-based build.
Step 4: Implementing Your Analytics
One of the essential parts of the MVP workflow is feedback. When you’re rolling out your MVP, you’ll be looking for insights, guidance, and analytics to help you decide your next steps. As a result, MVP workflows are heavily based on experimentation.
This means you need the right analytics tools in place to track critical information. You can implement tools to collect customer feedback directly. It is also worth having a system in place to track metrics such as:
- conversion rate;
- Traffic numbers;
- User behavior;
- Most used/least used features;
- Technical site performance;
- bounce rate;
- The average time spent on the page.
While Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools for gathering insights in the world of MVP website design, there are several other options available. You can even find tools with built-in heat maps to see how people navigate your site more efficiently.
A/B testing components are also worth having in place. This will allow you to test the various “new” features you add to your web pages over time and examine how they impact your conversions and support your goals. For example, you can use A/B testing to explore the impact of everything from CTA button colors to web page copy and offers.
Creating Your MVP Web Page
In the fast-paced world of web development and design, the old-fashioned and slow approach to designing web pages is becoming less popular. Instead, an MVP strategy may be the best bet for companies looking to get to market faster, gather insights from their target audience, and accelerate growth.
Although this design strategy can be challenging to get used to at first, it can save you significant time, resources and money in the long run.
HTML vector created by vectorjuice – www.freepik.com