I've read several different books and articles about web projects and how to make sense of what needs to happen when. Everyone has their own slant and it flavors how the entire process should go. Meanwhile they hope the "magic" in another group is happening. It's really important to have a list of the things you need to accomplish. I am not going to tell you who does what. That depends on your team and how you dole things out. I will tell you that each of these pieces needs to be addressed or you'll have a tough time moving to the next step. Without anyere's my core list of stuff to check off:
  1. Analysis
    • Business and user needs
    • Content Inventory and analysis
    • Site analytics (Look at search terms. This is your user talking TO YOU)
    • Personas
    • Brand, voice and message
  2. Collect moving pieces
    • Curated existing content (text, images, documents, etc.)
    • New content (Get it early or you'll hate yourself later)
    • Process functions (search, dynamic functions for displaying content, etc.)
  3. Design and prepare
    • Information Architecture (Hierarchy, page layout, workflow, wireframes, etc.)
    • Build structured documents containing all raw copy for the site
    • Colors, designs, images, flow, implemented voice and message
    • Get info about servers, technical needs, etc.
    • Prepare SEO deployment plan
  4. Build
    • Prepare comps using design specs and wireframes
    • Build templates to house content based on wireframes
    • Implement design via styles as comps are completed
    • Edit content to match voice and message and begin inserting into CMS
    • Prepare SEO: descriptions, titles, friendly URLs, etc.
    • Prepare 301 redirects for old pages being replaced or moved (I feel this SEO technique is important enough it needs to be stated separately)
    • Ensure servers are online, technical needs are met and everything is ready for launch
  5. Launch
    • Stage site out of the public eye and QA completely
    • Deploy site (Post-QA)
    • QA for sanity (All pieces are behaving like they were on staging, nothing is broken)
    • Celebrate!
  6. Postmortem
    • Review analytics and compare to pre-release stats
    • Inventory new site (include all new copy, new images, etc.)
    • Review conversions
Build your core list of needs and lead your team to the promised land. One project at a time, make the web a better place.