How to Write a Great Website RFP

Introduce your organization and the purpose of the RFP. State not only what you want the service provider to do but also why: what is the central “pain point” your organization has? If it’s a website redesign, what about the current one isn’t working for your purposes? This is high level, so be brief. The details will come below and a birds-eye view is fine.

Describe your organization, what it does, and what you do. There’s a good chance we’ve never heard of you and may not be able to figure that out by visiting your existing web site (which may be why you need a new website). Additionally, tell us a little about your values. What makes you unique? Why does what you do matter?

Explain what you plan to accomplish or what outcome you have in mind. What are the three most important things that, if done well, will make the redesign a success in your eyes? Do you know of any quantitative metrics that will help, such as increased sales or more newsletter subscribers or better-qualified leads? Think in terms of what you want visitors to the site to do, not just what you want them to see.

In addition to determining project goals, you’ll want to think about who your website is meant to serve. It's very common for websites to have to address multiple different target audiences, but understanding those audiences upfront can make a huge difference.  Which target audiences will be most reliant on your organization’s new website? Are some audiences higher priority than others? It can help to rank the groups in order of importance. For a nonprofit, a list of target audiences could look like this:

1. Prospective program participants
2. Prospective donors
3. Corporate partners
4. Event attendees
5. Volunteers
6. Potential hires
7. Press & media

To take the next step, pair each target audience with a goal conversion – i.e. the action that you want them to take. Conversions are a great way to measure site visitor engagement, and they’re important to consider because the goals differ for each type of site visitor. For example, you may want a prospective program participant to sign up for an event series, while you’d want a potential hire to submit a job application. In the B2B space, sample goal conversions include encouraging consumers to reach out to your sales team, request a product demo, or place an order through your eCommerce platform.  While for nonprofit website design projects, clients will likely care more about donations, paths for visitors to get involved through advocacy, and other CTAs more relevant to their group.

One of the main reasons people reach out to NMC for a redesign, beyond a dated visual aesthetic, is that the content is poorly organized or hard to find. As much as the visual design impacts visitors' perception of your company, the information in turn reflects how well you've thought through your major site sections and navigation schema. If you already have a good idea how you'd like to reorganize it, include that here. (If not, that's OK too! Expect it to be one of the first things you'll do during the discovery phase with your vendor.)

The sitemap will help you determine which new content you need to write and what from the existing site will be migrated. Much of it may be outdated or irrelevant, so new copy will need to be written (especially if you're introducing a new product, service, or initiative). What does make it over to the new site will have to be imported into the content management system; be sure to let the vendor know whether that's something your team plans to do or whether you expect the vendor to handle it. Giving the vendor an idea of what content is moving helps them understand the size and scope of the site.  

In addition to the importance of determining how the content will be organized, it's also helpful to know how it will be connected.  Should certain pieces of content feed to different areas based on a category system and do you want to make sure that there are related content items throughout the site?  Just understanding the depths of the connections between different content will help the firms better understand the complexity around the content. 

Similarly, providing a sense of how important search is for the site and if there should be different filters and categories on the search and if it should be exposed in different areas of the site (e.g., a separate search for Products or People) will help inform whether third-party search technology needs to be incorporated and also help respondents think through how to best keep the site performant for you.  

Here’s where you want to provide more detail about the project. To the extent you can, describe all the services you know that you’ll be hiring a web team for. For example, with a web redesign project, you might be paying for:

• Project management
• Content strategy
• Copywriting
• Illustration
• Information design
• Visual design
• Search engine optimization
• Front-end coding (HTML/CSS, animations)
• Back-end coding (CMS, 3rd party APIs, custom software/features)
• Custom software or app development
• Mobile device optimization
• Accessibility audit
• Testing & quality assurance
• Paid search placement/advertising
• Software training
• And more

For a task like Information Design, maybe the deliverables are a sitemap and wireframes. For Visual Design, it might be source files in Photoshop or Figma format. Something like Project Management doesn’t really have a deliverable but it’s a non-trivial part of the process and doing it well is a valuable part of successful projects. Aim to be explicit about what's important to be delivered but it’s OK if you don’t know exactly what’s involved.

Also, there may be parts of the overall deliverable (new website!) that are more important to you than others.  We've had clients tell us "design is important of course, but what we really care about is SEO performance -- our design could stay the same, and if we had better SEO, this project would be a huge win."  Similarly, some groups make it known upfront that they have no idea what they want aesthetically and have a lot of stakeholders, so the website discovery and creative brief process will be really critical to build a strong foundation.  Details like that are really helpful in not only gauging the scope of the project but also to tailoring the details within the proposal.  

“Be advised: web sites vary widely in their time to completion…Be upfront about your timeline, and your vendors will be honest about its likelihood.”

You may not know how long something will take to do, but you likely do have a timeline you have to accomplish it within. Is there some hard deadline you need to hit, such as the launch of a new product or ad campaign? Maybe you have a big trade show coming up and need the site live by then? Be sure to mention any firm dates beyond the vendor selection process.

Be advised: web sites vary widely in their time to completion. Even very simple sites can take as much as 8 weeks; it can take time to assimilate your organization’s goals, values, and unique market proposition. In other cases for complex sites or web applications, 9-12 months is not unusual. Be up front about your timeline, and your vendors will be honest about its likelihood.

This is a pretty broad subject but your goal here is to describe what limitations or requirements you know in advance. A website is, at its core, a technical software product, so these are the details that may most materially impact the schedule and deliverables. Some examples of technical requirements include:

E-commerce: Do you expect to sell products or charge credit cards? A nonprofit may only want to accept simple (or recurring) donations but retail merchants require shopping carts, user accounts, inventory control, and shipping calculators. If you're accepting donations or selling things, are there any additional rules that should be incorporated, such as discounts for certain users, gift cards, etc. All of these details will help vendors recommend the best tools for the project.

Content Management Software: Do you require something specific, such as Drupal or Wordpress? Are you open to alternatives you may not be familiar with? (There are literally thousands of off-the-shelf CMS software options.) The vendor may also have developed an in-house solution that will meet your needs well. Large projects can require writing custom a platform for your company. It's also totally acceptable here to say you have no preference and are open to recommendations from the vendors.

Backend Programming Language: For custom web software development, is your system compatible only with a specific language, such as PHP, or Ruby, or Python? Do you have an existing infrastructure that the vendor needs to be fluent in?

Legacy Browser Support: How many visitors are still on old browsers, such as Internet Explorer 11 (released October 2013)? Do they need to be supported? To make a website perform or display in a legacy browser almost always requires additional development time.

Third-Party Software Integrations: Does your organization depend on 3rd party services for things like email newsletters, marketing automation, nonprofit online donation and fundraising tools, CRM / contact management, inventory control, intranet, accounting / Quickbooks, or inventory management? If so, be sure to include the ones for which synching / integration with the website is essential and describe how you expect it to work. For example, when someone subscribes to a newsletter, the contact should be added automatically to Highrise or Salesforce. If someone purchases a product and opts in, she should be added to our Mailchimp database, etc. Sometimes this functionality will be included out of the box and sometimes the vendor will have to write something custom.

Member Management: Do you require membership management on your site? This would be for allowing people to access special or hidden content on your site, perhaps after submitting an email address or paying to view a whitepaper. A simpler example would be password-protected pages that anyone can see with the same password and does not require a logged in account.

Goal Level of Accessibility or Special Considerations: Do you require the website to be accessible to blind or limited-vision users? This is an increasingly common item in RFPs, and it's important to know that accessibility requirements fall on a spectrum and you should know just how far you want to take it (or leave it to the web agencies to make a recommendation). For websites whose audience skews older, larger default text and click areas will inform the design. Government & public sites often require Section 508 compliance.

Translated Content: Do you want visitors to be able to access your content in different languages?  If so, there are several different approaches to translating website content  -- AI automated translations on the site, manual translations through the CMS, or just letting the browser do it automatically.  You may have a preference or you may not, but this is a feature that often comes up and prompts a discussion around approach and implementation, so be sure to mention it if its important to you.

As noted above, understanding a platform mandate can be the sole determining factor on if we participate in an RFP or not; there are some systems that specific firms just don't work with or may alter the budget to a point where it no longer makes sense for them.  However, nowadays, most folks we speak to don't necessarily have a mandated platform.  However, they do have some clear views on what the CMS should enable them to do or how they'd like for it to work.  This information is very helpful in the initial request!

Everyone wants an intuitive system, so we know that!  Pieces that can be really helpful to understand are whether there should be multiple levels of editor access to different pieces of content, if there are any specific styles of editing you like, and if there are setups in the past that really have not worked well for you. 

If you do have a clear idea on what platform you want, such as WordPress or Drupal, there could be connected technologies, plugins, or modules that you've used in the past before that you'd like included in the build.  For example, your current WordPress site may leverage Gravity Forms or Yoast SEO and you know that you want to leverage those tools in the new one; knowing that upfront will not only enabble a firm to think through the eventual tech stack, but also to think through how to make the transition easier for you by using your existing license to import settings or something similar.  If you don't have a super strong preference on individual pieces, I recommend just describing your goals (e.g., strong SEO control of on-page elements) and let the firm tell you their recommended stack and plugins to support that goal.

Usually, most writers of the RFP are the ones who will lead the project. If not, or if there are other team members involved, specify who they are. Have you or they worked on a similar web project before? Also, do you have final authority for making decisions or is there a committee that the designs will be presented to?

Additionally, you may want to think about how you expect your project to be managed by your web vendor. Do you want to use a digital task-management tool like Asana or Basecamp? Would it be helpful to schedule weekly calls to check in and offer feedback? Do you favor a truly collaborative approach, or something more hands-off?

If you’re not sure, it’s also okay to leave project management decisions up to your partner. In most cases, they’ll be happy to guide you through whatever programs or systems that they typically use for projects of a similar size. Whether you have an approach in mind or not, setting expectations up-front makes for a smoother working relationship from day one.

Yes, you really should include your budget, even if it’s your best guess. If you need to specify a range (“We’d like to spend $x,000 but are willing to go to $y,000 for the right proposal”), that’s fine too. Websites are like cars: you can get good ones anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000. There is no price point for which you cannot find a tinkering undergraduate freelancer to put something together for you. Meanwhile, professional agencies will do professional work and the proposal will let you know the difference.

If you want to buy a car, telling me your budget means letting you know what I can provide at that price: a Hyundai, a Toyota, a BMW or a Bentley. All great cars, all with different value propositions. In the case where a budget truly isn't known, at least let your vendor know what "level" you want by pointing out other sites online that you admire or want to emulate or you think would suit your needs. You’re a professional company seeking a professional service. It’s OK to talk about money.

Finally, if you have a separate budget for assets like photographs, illustrations, software licenses, services, etc., be sure to include it. These don’t often end up being a substantial part of the overall cost but they can eat into the final calculation. To extend the car metaphor, a mechanic has to buy the new part before installing it, which is separate from the cost to perform the service.

When the web project is done and launched, what then? It’s pretty typical to engage the vendor in an ongoing retainer agreement for support, training, ongoing development, strategy and search engine optimization, or more. Realistically, the launch of a website is only the beginning of a process: beyond fixing bugs or adding features moving forward, you must also consider how will you'll drive traffic to the new site. Websites are ongoing efforts that adapt to new technologies and use cases — or, in the best case scenario, must be scaled to accommodate huge amounts of traffic! If the post-launch marketing and advertising piece is important to your project, look for full-service web firms that will not only design and build the site but also work with you on maximizing its value afterwards.

How do you plan to track inbound visitors and the success of your content? You’ll want to ask the vendor how best to manage and track these data after (or indeed, before) the project has launched. Google Analytics is a popular choice because it's free and works well but there are other many options that offer additional functionality, such as Crazy Egg, which generates heat maps to help increase conversions. Your marketing automation tool, such as HubSpot or Pardot, may also have a tracking script that augments the traffic data gathered from the site.

Also, how involved do you want the agency with the analytics: do you want them to just setup and you will manage it going forward? Or is it something they should actively manage and report against in the future.

“Hosting is a broad term that typically covers a number of different pieces of a scope. So, it's important to also make sure that whoever your vendor recommends takes security and updates seriously”

Do you have a web host in mind already? If not, ask for options. The vendor will have clear preferences at various price points. For example, NMC has its own infrastructure at AWS and hosts many of our clients there. Some, thought, have needs that are better suited for a host like WP Engine or they may come to us with a hosting relationship already in place. Based on your previously outlined technical requirements, the partner can recommend the best fit for your needs, but if you have a preference (or mandate) let that be known upfront.

Additionally, hosting is a broad term that typically covers a number of different pieces of a scope. So, it's important to also make sure that whoever your vendor recommends takes security and updates seriously. Check with them to get an idea of things like:

• Who handles site backups?
• Is there an automated process for the recovery files and the database? Is this included, or an extra fee?
• Is a caching or content delivery network (CDN), which help with performance, included in the fee?
• What security safeguards are in place?
• Is there a guaranteed level of uptime?
• For open source CMS' like WordPress and Drupal, does the host also manage the ongoing core and plugin/module updates (these are important!)?

This one's easy: which websites do you like or admire, and why? It can be the overall experience or specific, discrete elements like a single contact form or image. Include examples of "best of breed" websites within your industry so the vendor can get a feel for the market leaders. Excellent example sites from other, unrelated industries are useful too.

You can typically find lists of website examples and trends by industry by Googling around, and these are a great starting point to get an idea of what others are doing.  We even keep some curated lists for our own reference to check out, such as examples of content heavy websites, digital health website examples, environmental and clean energy website examples, and plenty more!

You’re going to get a lot of different proposals back and each company will have different strengths, reputations, and capabilities. Some will compete on low cost; others on best quality; still others on more features. Figure out what you want in a vendor: cheapest option? Fastest delivery? Highest quality? Is a distributed team OK, or do you need every member to be local to your headquarters? Are sub-contractors OK or only full-time in-house staff? You’re balancing the expertise of the team with the limitations of your budget but in the end, you want the best work (and partner) that you can afford. No doubt several of these are typically important, so weight them according to what matters most to you.

Remember, the goal of the proposal you receive back is to evaluate the quality of vendor fitness for your project. Some questions you might ask the proposer to include in the reply:

• Examples of similarly-complex projects (to assess technical capability)
• Client references and whether email or phone is better (to assess credibility)
• Project timeline with major tasks and milestones (to assess process)
• Project budget by line item (to assess process)
• Plan for mobile / responsive design (to assess familiarity with current trends)

Does the proposal need to be submitted in a particular format, such as MS Word or PDF? Do you require signed & notarized hard copies? Does it need to be single-spaced with no staples (we've actually seen this a few times, believe it or not)? Is it OK for the vendor to use freelancers or sub-contractors or does every member of the team need to be full-time? What's the timeline for submitting the proposals? Typically, there's a deadline for receipt, for selecting semi-finalists, for scheduling interviews and for final selection. Do the semi-final interviews need to be in-person or is remote OK? This is all standard fare but it can be easy to overlook.

Finally, how much detailed information do you require about the vendor? If you need granular details, such as the names, titles, and bios of the vendor's team working on it, be sure to ask. For large teams, who will be available to work on the project may change depending on the vendor's production schedule.