5. Essential Features
What Are The Absolute Essentials For Your Website?
All websites should start with a wishlist of features. A series of cool bells and whistles that will help serve your audience, stand out from the crowd, and achieve your goals.
Ranking Essential Features
Now, of course, you want these features to have a purpose and to earn their place, rather than just complicate things, but it is a rare website with an unlimited budget that can have everything from day #1.
We don’t need to overcomplicate this, and, typically, something along the lines of primary, secondary, tertiary, and wishlist will do the job.
· Must-Haves – Primary features
· Should Have – Secondary features
· Potentials – It can be done on-time and on-budget
· Wishlist – Things to consider but for down the road
Download the Free ALCHEMY Website Planning Guide
Planning your website features
Just because you can do something, it does not always mean that you should do something and that it is the right or wise thing to do.
This applies to adding features to your website, and just because there is some new or shiny feature available, that does not mean you need it.
Think about this in terms of needs & wants. Needs are few; wants are endless!
To help you decide between essential needs and other wants, look at each feature from the perspectives below.
Audience & Goals
1. Audience
Does this help the audience achieve their goals? Or, alternatively, does this confuse things and distract the audience?
2. Goals
Does this feature help you achieve your goals? How? Are there any negative impacts?
Your goal is what you are aiming at. If the feature does not help you progress towards that goal then possibly it is a want and not a need. Categorise the features for your website accordingly.
KISS – Keep it Simple Stupid
Remember that the best websites are simple. Google is just a search box on a blank page and is the world’s most visited website. Would it help if they added a bunch of whizz bang features to the search page – no, it would distract from the key reason people visit Google – to search!
Choosing the right tool for the job
Many poorly defined web projects are soon derailed by the technology they are built with. The idea here is to identify the functionality required to simplify choosing the best tool for the job.
As an example, for B2B lead generation sites often WordPress is a flexible, user friendly website platform. However, if there is bespoke functionality required then it is not so flexible and maybe something like Craft is a better fit.
If a key goal is marketing then a platform with an integrated email system and CRM like HubSpot may be the best approach.
If you are an online store Shopify is a great starting point. Need a complex integration with your finance and stock control systems? Then maybe not such a great fit.
A brief should be platform agnostic as much as possible. You may have preferences, as in staff may have knowledge and experience with common systems like WordPress, but they should remain as such, adhered to where possible without causing other issues.
The point being, by clearly defining the required features you can more accurately assess the best platform for your needs.
Be crystal clear on goals before specifying features
This is a common problem.
In a recent project we came to help a company who was about to redesign their site for the third time in three years due to problems with each iteration.
Build one SEO was prioritised and this meant a platform was used that was incompatible with their ERP system.
Build two ERP integration was prioritised and the platform used was provided by the ERP software provider but it was painfully simple with awful SEO and antiquated UX.
When planning the third iteration we ensured the joint primary goals of SEO and ERP integration were in place so the right tool for the job could be put in place.
This was a very expensive, protracted and all around painful way to get to this point and could have been avoided with an ALCHEMY website plan.
Remember that less is more!
The temptation is always to add more. However, this almost always makes for a slower and more confusing site. What works in 2025 (and has always worked) are lean, fast sites that are laser-focused on the audience’s goals.
Now or Later?
One final point here is when these features will be added.
If there are things you would like to add in the future, then it can still be useful to document these now and make sure there are no technical issues with what you are doing now that would prevent this being added in the future.
Ensure the platform you choose can give you the features you need today or tomorrow.
Essential Features Spreadsheet
See the ALCHEMY Planning Spreadsheet and fill in the essential features tab.
A final note on features
It is not out of the realms of possibility that Feature-A may be best served by one platform and Feature-B by another. Having features in rank order here helps you make a call on the best approach in these kind of situations.
You can also then factor in budget and which way around makes the most sense inline with your project restraints (time, money & resources).
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