In the evolving digital landscape, your university’s website must stay current to effectively attract and delight prospective students, current students, alumni, and other stakeholders. A strategic redesign of your website is not just an upgrade; it’s a necessary step to ensure you remain competitive and relevant in the higher education space. Here are some key considerations and tips to help make the process smoother and more effective when writing a request for proposal (RFP) for a college website redesign.
Introduction and History
The first step is to give an introduction and background to your institution. Consider including answers to questions such as:
- When was it founded?
- What is it known for?
- What is the size of your institution?
- What’s the relationship between your institution and your community?
- What types of programs do you offer?
- How do you stand out from your competitors?
- What is the key branding or messaging of your institution
- How does that play out on your website?
Current Website Overview
Giving an overview of your current technological systems will help potential vendors understand the current state of your site and where they would be starting. Consider telling them the last time you did a website update.
Proposal Objectives
There’s a reason you want to have your website redesigned now. So what are you hoping to accomplish through this redesign? Are there any areas that you are specifically looking to improve? Be specific about your goals and the priorities you have for your website redesign RFP. This helps prospective vendors understand your goals and reduces the need for assumptions, leading to more accurate proposals. See below for examples:
Enhanced User Experience
Our website is often the first point of contact for prospective students and others. An outdated design can hinder user experience, making it difficult for visitors to find the information they need and provide a poor impression of our institution. A redesign will enable us to create a more intuitive, user-friendly interface that meets the needs of all our audiences.
Improved Accessibility
Accessibility is a crucial aspect of modern web design. By redesigning our website, we can ensure compliance with the latest accessibility standards, making our content available to everyone, including those with disabilities.
Modern Aesthetic and Branding
Our website should reflect our university’s brand and values. A fresh, modern design can reinforce our identity, making a strong impression on visitors and setting us apart from competitors.
Enhanced Functionality
A redesign provides an opportunity to integrate new technologies and features that can improve engagement and functionality. This could include advanced search capabilities, interactive campus maps, virtual tours, and more.
SEO and Performance
A new website will allow us to implement the latest SEO best practices, improving our search engine rankings, and increasing visibility. Additionally, modern web technologies can enhance site performance, resulting in faster load times and a better overall user experience.
Please reach out and schedule a time to chat about challenges in getting your college website redesign RFP moving or having us respond.
Preparing the RFP: Key Considerations
Tell Us Your Budget
We understand that disclosing your budget might be uncomfortable, but as with any higher ed RFP, it’s extremely helpful for aligning expectations. If you don’t provide a budget, vendors have to make assumptions which may not align with your needs. Being upfront with your budget helps ensure you get proposals that are realistic and comparable and saves you time and frustration in the long run.
Evaluation Criteria/Scoring
Providing evaluation criteria is always helpful for vendors. It helps them understand what you are looking for in terms of priorities. See below for an example of possible evaluation criteria. Providing percentages or weights of importance will help ensure you get the information you need to make the best decision for your university.
- Alignment of proposed statement of work to our objectives and scope of work
- Portfolio of related work
- Demonstrated success with similar clients addressing similar requirements
- Acceptance of terms and conditions
- Overall costs, bill rates, and unit pricing
Ideally, you can outline the criteria for selecting the winning proposal, such as experience, portfolio, approach, and cost. Make clear how you plan to rank so we know where to focus our efforts.
Consider Your Content and SEO
Content and organic search performance are critical elements of any website. Specify whether you need content development or if you’re looking for a vendor to migrate existing content – be sure to include how much content needs to be migrated! Consider if you have a goal to drastically reduce or move a good deal of content to an intranet. If you have a target of how much content you want the vendor to take on, let them know!
Content is typically costly, so consider a model where the vendor partner does some content and then trains marketing or communications staff, empowering them to take on the content writing going forward. This clarity will help your vendors scope the project accurately. Redesigning a new website is a great time to implement the latest SEO best practices, improving your search engine rankings and increasing visibility.
CMS/Technical Requirements
Be sure to call out any technical specifications, including preferred content management system (CMS) platforms, integration with existing systems, and compliance with accessibility standards and be as detailed as possible. Is an integrated embedded form or a complex API integration needed? Is there a catalog, campus tour, or search platform prospective vendors need to plan for?
The content management system can be a significant aspect of a website redesign project. Are you staying on your current platform, upgrading it, or switching to a new one? Conveying your intentions from a technical standpoint is critical. Whether it’s outlining development scope, support options, or defining a CMS selection exercise, clarity here helps potential vendors provide aligned proposals.
When you see proposal responses to your website redesign RFP, you may see a co-proposal between a design/strategy agenda partner and a content management system provider. This is common! If getting a new CMS platform off the ground is part of this, consider how the CMS provider may be a part of this and which pieces may be contracted with them.
Relevant Market Research or Engagement Data
It’s normal for higher ed institutions to look to market research, branding, and enrollment studies, among other things, when deciding to do a website redesign. When this new information reshapes the institution’s understanding of the market or its positioning in it, it’s important to think about your website redesign. How can these changes be incorporated comprehensively to show consistency across all parts of the institution? Including this information can help form specific proposals that meet your needs.
Composition and Governance of Website Redesign Project Team
Having your internal project governance defined before issuing an higher ed website redesign RFP signals to potential vendors your commitment to managing the project effectively. It also establishes a solid foundation for future decision-making and stakeholder management. While you don’t need to include everyone in your proposal, be sure to outline the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved in the RFP process, including the primary point of contact, project manager, and other key team members. This ensures efficient communication and decision-making throughout the project.
Milestones and Deadlines
Having a clear timeline for your RFP process and website redesign is crucial. Specify any key milestones and deadlines to help vendors create a realistic project plan for your university website redesign. Remember, flexibility may be required as unforeseen delays can occur, but having an initial timeline is beneficial for project management. An example can be seen below:
- Distribution of RFP | May 17, 2024
- Deadline for proposer questions | May 30, 2024
- Deadline to submit proposal | Thursday, June 27, 2024
- Contact finalists to schedule interviews | Week of July 8, 2024
- Contract awarded | Week of August 5, 2024
- Contracts finalized and signed | Week of August 26, 2024
- Project kick-off September 2024
- Project launch December 2025
Scope
Try to be as specific as you can with detailed requirements, including design, development, content migration, and any specific functionalities needed. That said, if you are open to your vendor partner’s approach or a different take, make that clear in the RFP. If you know the number of templates you envision, that information is very helpful as well. Alternatively, if you are open to a more modular design system approach, make that clear as well!. The number of templates is often a cost lever in pricing, so consider a more fluid and flexible approach (top-level template, standard inner catch-all template) vs. a dozens of specific page types. If you don’t know this, that’s okay, too. Being honest about what you want, or that you don’t know what you want, can still help get accurate proposals that will deliver on what you need.
Conclusion
Writing an RFP for a higher ed website redesign is a significant step towards enhancing your college website. By considering these tips – budget, goals, content, timeline, and feedback – you can ensure a smoother RFP process and better outcomes. Vendors will appreciate the clarity and effort put into the RFP, leading to well-crafted proposals that align with your needs and budget. This step can ensure your website reflects the excellence of your university.
Still need more inspiration for writing your website redesign RFP? Fill out the form below to download sample RFPs and an extended version of this article!