Website Design
Professional websites that are mobile-friendly, easy to use and search engine friendly.
Website Design
Goals and pain points
My main goal with every website design project is to create a website that adds value to your brand.
This happens by listening to your pain points, discussing goals for the website, and figuring out how to make the new design solve key problems.
Once I know why we are redesigning the website and what problems the website needs to solve we dive into the next phase, which includes defining the solutions to your problems and explaining how your goals are going to be met.
Define scope and maintenance
This part of the process is where I define the scope of the project and make sure the end result meets or exceeds your expectations. I’ll also go over post-go-live maintenance options because “set it and forget it” simply does not work when it comes to your website.
Content management
Next, we have to determine the content used throughout the website and begin updating and/or creating new content for each page/section of your website. You or someone from your team will be responsible for content creation and it has to be done before the bulk of the design can be completed.
Design selections and layout
With the content mostly behind us, it’s time to identify the colors and fonts to be used on the website along with any other design specific elements. This is the longest part of the project because it leads directly to the layout and design of your website.
Testing
Once the initial design is complete we’ll need to check each page for errors, typos, missing content, etc. We will go through as many iterations as needed to get your new website ready to go live.
Go live
With the design complete and testing behind us, it’s time to go live! We can launch the site on your schedule. Just say when and I will update DNS records so that your new design project becomes a reality.
Post-go-live checklist
Just a few more steps before the project is complete. Once the website is live, at a minimum I’ll run down the following checklist; I’ll:
- Make sure the site is accessible at the correct secure (https) URL
- Set up Google analytics
- Submit your website to Google
- Activate caching for added performance
- Activate security management
- Activate image compression
- Verify that your contact forms are working
- Verify that your robots.txt file is formatted correctly
- Set up your backup schedule
- Set up uptime monitoring
- Connect social media accounts
- Verify site permalinks are set up correctly
- Check your favicon
- Test your website display on multiple devices
Maintenance and marketing
Once the post-go-live checklist has been completed and you have signed off on the project the routine maintenance and digital marketing begins.
In case you skimmed the details above or you’re just looking for a quick explanation of my process, here are the steps from beginning to end:
- Discuss goals and pain points
- Define scope and post-go-live maintenance
- Content management – the creation of new and updating of old
- Choose design variables like colors and fonts, define the layout, and add content to pages
- Test and retest
- Go live
- Post-go-live checklist