How to Write an RFP for Website Design

Website Development or Website Redesigning is an exciting but also terrifying job. You need to find the right and most experienced partner on whom you can rely. After all, a website is a mirror to your business, to operations you conduct.

And to find the best agency for creating, updating, or redesigning your website, you need to prepare a thorough web design RFP. Sound challenging?

Don’t worry. With our little guidance, you will be writing RFP just like a pro. Follow our guide and find all answers to your questions.

What is RFP Design?

RFP (Request For Proposal) is a formal business document that an organization creates to search for potential suppliers. This is used to solicit bids from website design agencies, to determine whether they are a perfect fit, and to provide a means for understanding capabilities and compatibility between each other.

A company that is interested in a service or product or a valuable asset often sends out requests to suppliers to submit business proposals.

So, if you already know the scope of your project, its objectives, and reason behind redesigning a website, writing your RFP will take no time.

Who writes RFP?

RFP is basically an employee’s opportunity to advocate for a team, company, and themselves. Generally, it is written by main stakeholders in any project. You don’t need to ask the head of accounts and finance to write an RFP for a new web design.

In fact, the most important point is whosoever is writing this document must be well versed with project requirements, should be knowledgeable about the project and must have some clearance for decision making.

Directors or CEOs are often involved in the process, but they are not the first person to make an RFP request.

So, do you need help with your RFP or Website Design? Contact Rentech Digital now. We are here to help you.

Why is RFP Design so essential for any business?

Writing RFP for web design is highly recommended. In 2021, you can’t do without a website. It advocates brands, promotes your products and services, and helps you connect with a local, national, and international audience.

So, if you want to thrive in digital market, you need to have a website and therefore, you should prepare RFP Design because of the following reasons-

Here, we have mentioned a few factors to consider while selecting any ideal UI/UX prototyping software-

How to write RFP for Website Design

a. Overview of Project

Start your RFP proposal by introducing your organization. Clearly mention your purpose and state what you are looking for. So if it’s about website redesigning, you need to discuss pain points of your organization and explain the status of your current website. Be brief with your point because all details will come below.

TIP: Detail the deadline clearly with a project kick-off and launch target date.

b. Company Overview

Give a crisp description of what your company does, services and solutions you provide, core values and what makes you stand out from competitors.

This is an important section because here you provide all information which one may not find on your existing website.

TIP: Tip: Include a link to your company website as well as social media handles if available.

c. Project Goals and Target Audience

Explain your plans for reaching out to the target audience and accomplishing project goals. Also add, which are three important points, if focused, will make redesign a success in your eyes. You can think from a viewpoint of visitors and then state pointers on things to be done.

Don’t forget to succinctly explain your target audience and demographics- age, gender, income group, region, occupations and others for website redesigning.

If you have some specific SMART goals, mention in your RFP document like-

d. Information architecture and sitemap

One of the main reasons to prepare sitemap and information architecture is that it goes beyond a visual aesthetic. Many times content is poorly organized and becomes hard to bring at the right place. Therefore, focusing on this at an early stage will ease the task and save your time and energy.

So while working on RFP, you must create a sitemap and determine which new content you need to write and what all you can migrate from an existing site. Information architecture and sitemap often keep things organized and well managed. This will also give an idea to a vendor regarding size and scope of a project.

e. Scope of work and deliverables

Here you have to explain in detail about your project. Describe what kind of work you will be looking for and in how much time. For an instance, with a web redesign project, you might be paying for-

When you mention scope of work and deliverables, a few vendors will calculate time to completion, multiply per hour rate cost and conclude with an estimated project cost. So, an imperfect scope section will definitely impact your budget and timeline.

Here are a few items you should specify at a minimum in this section:

Subdomains: If your website has subdomains, which ones are included in this project?

Components included for redesign: Specify whether you want to improve the entire look and feel of your website or just a color balancing. Do you want to rebuild information architecture?

Tech Stack: If your website has subdomains, which ones are included in this project?

Search Engine Optimization: Besides an SEO-friendly website, specify in RFP what else you want. Make sure you are clear about who will provide SEO suggestions and who will implement it. Also, clear out things who will be held accountable for redirections because it consumes a lot of time and energy.

Others include – Number of templates and page building, content migration, whether requires GDPR compliance and multilingual support.

Tip: If you are still unaware of what to include in scope of work, try looking around other’s websites and use them as reference for stating features and functions.

f. Budget Preparation

By the time you start pitching your project to different corporations, you should already have defined your budget. Generally, companies don’t like to open up their pricing card. But, if you do so, then vendors are sure to do a well-hand research to qualify your company.

Vendors who accept your budget will suggest creative ways to achieve more of your goals or else find ways to politely excuse the process. Also, if you have a payment schedule or fiscal year limitations, this would be a great time to disclose those.

g. Proposal

Define what an agency or vendor should include in the proposal. For instance- a time of delivery, scope of work, proposed technologies, pricing and more. Also notify if a proposal needs to be submitted in a particular format, such as MS Word or PDF.

Proposal Software Tools to Help You Manage RFPs

Manually creating RFPs may consume your time and energy. So, here we have mentioned a few of the commonly used tools to help you create and manage RFPs-

1. PandaDoc

PandaDoc is an ideal software to customize your RFPs with any industry-specific requirements like marketing, branding, finance, or legal documentation. Use this tool and create your first RFP in just a few minutes.

2. RFP360

RFP360 is a confluence of intuitive knowledge management, collaboration and workflow related features where you can prepare, review and update RPFs in a single library. Also, you can import RFPs in various formats you want.

3. RFPIO

RFPIO helps you with reporting dashboards, project management, auto-response features and many others to streamline your RPF requirements. It brings together teams and increases win rates by generating proactive proposals.

4. Loopio

Loopio is a one-stop solution to organize all your responses to RFPs. It helps you auto manage responses and simultaneously manage your entire RFP process in one place in one dashboard.

If you face any issue or don’t want to indulge yourself in the hassle of creating and managing RFPs, Rentech Digital is on your way to help you out.

The Key Takeaways

An RFP is the face of your company to potential collaborators so it’s important to compose it well. A professionally stated document will increase chances for good leads and better working relationships.

Besides that, this comprehensive RFP Website Design will help you integrate with your diverse requirements and map out your pricing standards to crack any deal with the best pricing.

Therefore, it should be pretty clear, simple and straightforward. It must be addressing pain points and giving solutions in an understandable manner.

Already Have A Web Design Project? If you have a web design project, feel free to contact Rentech Digital today. We can help with your RFP all the way to the finished product.